Media Convergence Initiative

When it comes to eating healthy, everyone starts out the beginning of the week strong! They make all their meals at home, they start exercising everyday, and they stick to their healthy meal plan diet. But it almost always happens, to just about everyone. They start to get that craving for take out food. They’ll want to go out to eat with the girls or have their Sunday family meal at that ‘most talked about Mexican restaurant downtown’ and they’ll tell themselves that only for that night they will eat bad and starting the next day, it’s back to the health kick. But for most people, trying to start back up after back peddling one night is harder than most people think.  Nine times out of ten, most people that cheat during their diet and go off their meal plan for even one day, typically stay off their diet and never return to their meal plan until they start completely back up again months later.

While eating out is fun and delicious and almost always calls for a great time, the consequences of eating out go far beyond the positive aspects.  I will provide you with the three most fattening and unhealthy restaurants to eat in America and I promise you after you read the facts, you will be sticking to your diet and won’t have to worry about messing up with ‘eating out’ again. So here they are, your three most fatty, most heart attack causing restaurants in America:

1. The number one, heavily loaded in grease restaurants in America is none other than The Cheesecake Factory. This American chain restaurant is awarded with having the highest calories, including fat and sodium counts, with a heavy, gut-busting 2,500 calories per dish, and that’s not even including the saturated fat counts! With a whopping 85 grams of saturated fat, that’s the fat equivalent to four complete days of heavy-duty meals. We’re not just talking about a couple of salads a day. Cheeseburgers and fries for breakfast, a thanksgiving meal for lunch and the leftovers for dinner! And that’s just one day out of the total four days it would take to eat like that just to equal the one dish of 85 grams of saturated fat at The Cheesecake Factory. So next time you consider eating out at this factory, you might want to consider how much time you will be spending in the gym to get rid of all those fat grams!
2. At a close second and not far behind The Cheesecake Factory is your one and only California Pizza Kitchen.  While promoting healthy alternative meals in their menu is one of the newest editions to their menu, maintaining some of the most unhealthy, fatty, and greasy meals on their menu is not. As the battle for obesity in our country is becoming worse and worse throughout the years, California Pizza Kitchen is taking no part in trying to help the cause. In one of their famous pasta dishes, the ‘Pesto Cream Penne’ a whopping 1,350 calories is contained within this not so big meal. And don’t stop there! Add another 1,920 mg of sodium to this dish and you’re good to go! With the amount of salt within just one of these dishes at California Pizza Kitchen, it should make you skeptical of what their other meals, including their juicy, but greasy cheeseburgers have in them. While eating out may sound tempting, think about the pros and cons. If the cons outweigh the pros, in this case they don’t just outweigh but they completely devour the pros, then you should think about making your own healthy pasta at home, instead of the Penne Pasta that might leave you in the hospital!
3. The third and final most fattening restaurant in America may come as a surprise for some because of their new healthy portioned menu, which is in no way healthy at all. Chili’s Restaurant Bar and Grill has an unbelievable average of about 2,300 calories per dish. And when it comes to the grams of fat, expect about 140 grams or so. While all of the burgers on the Chili’s menu are well over 1,000 calories, that isn’t the dish to watch out for! In disguise, the Quesadilla Explosion Salad is by far worst than any burger on the menu. At an astounding 1,300 calories, this ‘healthy alternative’ is nowhere near healthy, just an alternative for different ways to end up with high cholestrol. With 87 grams of fat, this salad contains more grams of fat than most salads, anywhere! So take this information with a grain of salt when thinking about whether you should be eating out or not, because if you decide you do want to eat out, it will be a little bit more than just a grain of salt.

I gave you the three most fattening, greasy, and unhealthy restaurants to eat at in America, so make the right choice and stay in. Have family night at home this Sunday and have everyone pitch in to cut down on time. Make something healthy and delicious and stay on track with your diet and healthy eating choices because I promise you, the moment you step foot in one of these restaurants, it will take a lot more than just a couple of days of eating healthy again to put you back on track!

As a society our health consciousness is increasing. Eating healthy and exercising is becoming more common. Gyms and health food stores are popping up everywhere and it seems as though Americans are starting to focus more on healthier bodies and longer lives.

What about our brains? Are we forgetting the most important part of our functioning bodies?

On average, Americans live to the age of 80. One in three girls live to a hundred and one in four boys live to a hundred.  Our brains’ performance peaks around the age of forty. We are now outliving our brains.

In the last thirty or forty years of our lives our problem solving abilities, decision making, speed of thinking, and memory are dwindling.

Exercising our brains is just as good for us as exercising our bodies because what is a healthy body without a healthy mind?

Scientists encourage us to stop looking at everything on a surface level. Instead of explaining a movie or book to someone by reiterating the story with details, look at the story with a deeper meaning. Think and then explain what you brought away from the story.

We are also encouraged to stop multi tasking. As our lives get busier and busier we tend to focus on more projects with less concentration. In reality our work suffers because we are not paying as much attention to detail.

Scientists also suggest more physical activity. Not only does exercise better our bodies, it betters our minds. Exercising increases heart rate, which in turn allows more blood flow to your brain, stimulating memory centers.

The combination of exercise and involved thinking is sure to boost brain activity and a longer life.