Resturants That Are Setting You Up To Fail

Obesity on the Kids' Menus at Top Chains
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CSPI Investigation Reveals Kids’ Meals at Restaurants Usually Too High in Calories, and Good Options Hard to Find WASHINGTON—
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Nearly every single possible combination of the children's meals at KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic, Jack in the Box, and Chick-fil-A is too high in calories, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, which today released the results of an investigation into the nutritional quality of kids’ meals at 13 top restaurant chains. Ninety-three percent of 1,474 possible choices at the 13 chains exceed 430 calories—an amount that is one-third of what the Institute of Medicine recommends that children aged four through eight should consume in a day.
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Chili’s has 700 possible kids’ meal combinations, but 658, or 94 percent, of those are too high in calories, including one comprised of country-fried chicken crispers, cinnamon apples, and chocolate milk (1,020 calories) and another comprised of cheese pizza, homestyle fries, and lemonade (1,000 calories). Burger King has a "Big Kids" meal with a double cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate milk (910 calories), and Sonic has a "Wacky Pack" with 830 calories worth of grilled cheese, fries, and a slushie. KFC has a wide variety of side items, but there are few meal combinations that keep a reasonable ceiling on calories, according to the study.
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One example of a high-cal combo KFC kid’s meal (the chain calls them "Laptop Meals") has popcorn chicken, baked beans, biscuit, Teddy Grahams, and fruit punch, which has 940 calories. (KFC has since dropped Baked Cheetos from its kids’ meals, and some outlets vary the number of chicken strips or sides.) Most of the kids’meals (93 percent) at McDonald’s and Wendy’s are too high in calories, as are the possibilities at Burger King (92 percent), Dairy Queen (89 percent), Arby's (69 percent), and Denny's (60 percent—though its kids' meals don’t include drinks). (Since CSPI’s study was completed, Burger King has introduced one new children's meal with macaroni and cheese, apple "fries," and 1 percent milk, which has a reasonable 420 calories.) Subway's kids' meals came out on top. Only a third of its Fresh Fit for Kids meals, which include a mini-sub, juice box, and one of several healthful side items (apple slices, raisins, or yogurt), exceed the 430-calorie threshold. Subway is the only chain that doesn’t offer soft drinks with kids’ meals.
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"Parents want to feed their children healthy meals but America’s chain restaurants are setting parents up to fail," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. "McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and other chains are conditioning kids to expect burgers, fried chicken, pizza, French fries, macaroni and cheese, and soda in various combination at almost every lunch and dinner."
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Besides being almost always too high in calories, 45 percent of the kids' meals at the 13 chains studied by CSPI are too high in saturated and trans fat, and 86 percent are too high in sodium. That’s alarming, according to CSPI, because a quarter of children between the ages of five and ten show early signs of heart disease, such as high LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) or elevated blood pressure. "People may not get a heart attack until their 50s or 60s, but arteries begin to clog in childhood," said Wootan. "Most of these kids’ meals appear to be designed to put America’s children on the fast-track to obesity, disability, heart attack, or diabetes."
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Though the overwhelming majority of chain restaurant kids' meals are nutritionally poor, calorie counts on menus and menu boards would help parents assemble healthier meals for their children. If Arby’s kids' meals had calorie counts, parents could see that substituting a fruit cup and a juice box for fries and a soda would cut a popcorn chicken meal from 720 calories to 420. If Denny’s listed calories on menus, parents could see the surprising difference between the calories in Big Dipper French Toastix (770) and Smiley-Alien Hotcakes (without meat, 370).
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CSPI has advocated laws or regulations that require chain restaurants to list calories on menus and menu boards. They've already begun appearing in New York City. San Francisco, King County (Seattle), WA., Multnomah County (Portland), OR, and Santa Clara County, CA, also have passed menu labeling policies. Similar policies have been introduced in over 20 other states and localities over the last two years. California’s legislature may be on the verge of passing a statewide menu labeling bill, which lobbyists for the chain restaurant industry are fighting tooth and nail. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy, an advocacy group leading the fight for menu labeling legislation in that state, collaborated with CSPI on the study released today.
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CSPI only scrutinized the chains that have dedicated children’s menus (19 out of the top 25 chains) and that provide nutrition information on their web sites or elsewhere (13 chains). Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and IHOP do not disclose nutrition information for most menu items even upon request.

2008....well it's here and what are you doing to make this year better than last year? Well I hope you are ready and now you have a strong and fit resource to turn to for all the latest help in getting to and achieving your goals - this monthly newsletter! So settle down and read on as I begin sharing with you what I believe is the very first issue we must address before any changes can occur...the we way think and our fear of failure.
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Getting in shape really takes time...serious time. If you are thinking you are going to lose all your bodyfat in just a few short weeks because some lady named Jenny said you could or someone else is encouraging you to "watch your weight" and all will be good, well I hate to tell you but that just isn't how it goes. Changing our body first requires that we change our mindset, our thinking. Hopefully as you read this, you will learn more about that.
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Just yesterday I was listening to the soundtrack from the movie rocky balboa - greatest hits (yeah, they have one out and I bought it but you knew if it existed I would buy it...right?). There is a song on it that I had forgotten about called No Way Out. The words are pretty good but the part of the song that really hit me was just about the time I was wanting to stop on my 10th minute of heart pounding, severly sweating, interval sprints on my eliptical trainer. The words went like this:
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"There's no easy way out..there's no short cut home."

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I gotta tell you, that song cut straight to the heart of my soul, my motivation. Now you have to understand, I am the kind of person that gets motivated by watching movies where the circumstances that seem overwhelming to the main character, in this case Rocky Balboa, forces him to stop and dig deep inside of himself to find a part a himself that is willing to go the extra mile, to do the hard and difficult thing; to face a situation not knowing if they were going to live or die but did it anyway and came out not only alive but the hero....man I love that stuff!

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What this song did for me was to help me realize there is no short cuts and unfortnately there is no easy way out of this thing, achieving my goals. It is going to take some hard work to get where I want to be and it is going to take dedication and commitment to myself and my goal.

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In the first Rocky movie, I remember seeing Rocky getting up at 4:30 a.m. going over and cracking a bunch of raw eggs, putting them in a large blender then DRINKING it....yuk! Then he got ready and began his road work, meaning he began his daily running program prior to going to the gym to have Micky, his trainer, work his butt off. Wow, what discipline but all Rocky wanted was to know if he could at least hang with Apollo Creed for 15 rounds, that was all Rocky wanted. He didn't think he had a chance to win, he just wanted to know he was good enough to compete. In the end, he nearly killed Apollo Creed by beating him so badly, although Rocky lost the fight by split decision (and took a beating himself from Apollo), Apollo knew in his heart that Rocky won and that is why we have the movie Rocky 2 - the rematch. If you haven't seen these two movies I suggest you rent them. In all my life, nothing moves me more than these inspiring movies.

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It is things like this that moves me to levels I sometimes don't want to visit because where I am today is so comfortable. But in order to have what I have never had before I have to do what I have never done. But in doing so, I put myself out there in front of everyone that can see me, that may be judging me, criticizing me. To be honest with you, I don't venture out to those new levels, then no one can call me a quitter if I fail. But as I have found out recently failure is not what it seems but in reality it is success in training.

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Here is a quote from an author I read recently: " Without courage you're not living, you're hiding. Courage is what moves you forward; It's the muscle that makes your faith work. Faith by itself can be nothing more than a set of beliefs. Courage is what activates your beliefs. Every Promised Land has "giant" problems and you have to face them and defeat them before moving in and taking up residence." Courage is like oxygen; you can't survive without it. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's the conquest of it. Courage means doing it afraid - until you're no longer afraid. It also means trembling your way to confidence!

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One prolific author once wrote: "Fear is not knowing what's around the corner but courage goes around it anyway." As each of us plan our New Year's resolutions don't let the fear of failure rule your lives. We all have our daily failures but true strength comes from what you do with those failures - how you respond to them. Getting in shape, transforming your body is not a 12 week program - it is only a start! No matter how you feel, or what you stumble upon, what gets in your way, you can overcome it. Water in a creek or river is not stopped by the mighty rock, it simply either goes over or around it.

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What kind of rocks get in your way? Just like water, you have to just go over or around them but keep moving forward and soon you will reach the destination you are reaching for. Remember that old Chinese proverb that says, "The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"? Well that's true. Just because in a few short weeks we don't see the incredible results that the marketing genius's tell us we are suppose to have when we follow someone's crazy diet, well we get discouraged and discouragement is a word that means to "lose courage" to be DIS- couraged. Focus on the long term not the short term but celebrate the quick victories but realize you aren't there yet. In fact you have to almost look at this like a college basketball or football team does when they start the season. They celebrate the small victories during each set of plays and if they win the celebrate the victory of the day, but they have not yet won the national championship. That takes ALL season to get there.

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Look at your transformation as your "season" and work toward your own personal national championship. Train hard all year and eat like an athlete - with purpose and for performance. I guarantee you that if you do this, you will get to the big game and you will win - if you don't get sidetracked when you lose a game from time to time.

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If this has helped you please send it on to others and help them if you know they are struggling. I want to see you better today than you were yesterday and better tomorrow than you are today.