Action Plan to Take the Weight Off This Year

Addicted to Restaurants

Are you addicted to restaurants? So are lots of Americans. What used to be a "treat," going out for dinner, has become more common that cooking at home, and we think we're better off? Think again. Restaurant eating, fast foods and highly processed foods are turning us into a nation of tubby's. It's time to take back control of our waistlines.

You choose where you eat, and you choose what you eat. Here are some suggestions to begin to make better choices.

Restaurants Exist to Make a Profit

The bottom line is restaurants exist to make a profit. They pile on the extra butter and rich cream sauces, carmelized sugar toppings, cheese sauce, double-deluxe, new improved, and whatever they can do to make the food so enticing, so delicious, we just cannot resist. Fine for an occasional splurge, but not everyday fare, and herein lies the problem.

Extra Value Meals

McDonalds started the trend by offering slightly larger portions for a bit more money, and every other food establishment quickly followed suit. Extra value they called it. Who wouldn't order a bit more for only pennies? Today nearly every restaurant, fast food or sit down dining, serves gigantic quantities that boggle the mind. There is usually enough food served for two, sometimes three meals.

Reading in Restaurant Confidential (get a copy of this book and read it until it sinks in), the calorie count in the typical restaurant meal is so staggering it ends the surprise of why obesity is rampant and on the rise. Cheese fries with Ranch dressing are listed at having over 3,000 calories and 217 grams of fat (91 of them saturated). That's an entire