Beware of breakfasts on the road . . .

You'd figure that it would be hard to pack too many calories and fat into a simple breakfast, but you'd be wrong.

​"Go to any breakfast chain out there and you'll probably find a meal with more fat in it than you're supposed to eat all day. You can't just order eggs anymore; your meal also comes with pancakes, hash browns, ham, sausage, bacon, and is topped off with cheese and gravy.

"Before each chain can invent their next bacon-covered monstrosity, San Francisco Weekly magazine counted down the top 10 artery-clogging breakfast options that America has to offer. It's based purely on fat (not calories) and they included a meal from each one of the nation's most popular breakfast chains."

The numbers are, well, staggering, disturbing (including the calories) . . .

Like the Caramel Pecanabon at Cinnabon -- over 1,000 calories for ONE, with more than 50 grams of fat.

But, you say, "I'd expect Cinnabon to blow out the calories."

OK, but how about Marie Callender's? Order their "Oh My Omelette" and you may reach for your chest before breakfast is over and utter these last words, "Oh, My!" -- 1,700 calories with almost 90 grams of fat.

Or Denny's and "The Grand Slamwich?" It will knock you out of the park. 1,310 calories and 89 grams of fat.

But the Mother of All Death Meals at Breakfast has to be IHOP's Big Country Breakfast with Chicken Fried Steak and Sausage Gravy. In round numbers, 2500 calories and 150 grams of fat and if you eat it you will be rounder than the numbers. Described as "Quick: you are a North American grizzly bear, it's late autumn, and you realized that you need to get as much fat as possible into your body as quickly as possible before a long winter of hibernation. Solution: go to IHOP*, which is both the runner-up and winner on this list of heart attack-inducing options. Your best (or worst?) option is the Big Country Breakfast. It's a 12 oz. chicken fried steak covered in sausage gravy, with three eggs, and three pancakes. If you can get down the whole meal, then you should win some kind of award and also probably just eat celery sticks and nothing else for the rest of your life."

Unfortunately, if you eat that many times the rest of your life may end before lunch.

You can see the whole article here:

Bottom line? Be as careful at breakfast as you are any other time you are caught away from home and are eating off menus where you cannot and do not review the nutritional information.

Train hard; diet harder.

Jim