Maintaining a diet is extremely difficult these days, what with healthy food costing an arm and a leg and with greasy, sugary temptation at every corner. And after watching what you eat all week, it doesn’t hurt to treat yourself with something you’ve been craving every now and then. Especially when you go out to eat with friends. Your favorite slice of cheesecake or a small, or a shake every once in a blue moon shouldn’t kill you. At least, not immediately at least. But the un-reported calories could definitely be killing your waistline.

According to a study done and released in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),  the restaurants you’ve coveted as favorites have been trying their hardest to hide the real calorie counts of some of their most popular dishes. According to ABC News, 269 food items and 242 “unique” foods from 42 restaurants were studied. Results found that restaurants are doing the absolute most (which you probably already knew), stacking foods unnecessarily, and afterwards, concealing the caloric intake. Many in the healthcare industry who heard the results hope that studies like these will force new legislation, requiring restaurants to put the calories of their menu items on the actual menus. When this is done, people can be aware before they order of what they really are going to be needing to work off. So if you’re feeling some Applebee’s, IHOP, Cold Stone Creamery or any of the restaurants listed below, stay far FAR away from the following menu favorites:

1. Cold Stone Creamery – The PB&C Shake (peanut butter, chocolate and milk)

-Calories: 2,010

2. The Cheescake Factory – The Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake

-Calories: 1,540

3. The Cheesecake Factory – The Farmhouse Burger

-Calories: 1,530

4. Applebee’s – Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs With Fettuccine and garlic bread

-Calories: 1,520

5. Great Steak – Extra-Large King Fries

-Calories: 1,500

6. Mortons – 24 Oz. Porterhouse Steak

-Calories: 1,390

7. Denny’s – Fried Cheese Melt

-Calories: 1,260

8. IHOP – Monster Bacon ‘N Beef Cheeseburger

-Calories: 1,250

By the names of these meals, I know what you’re thinking: you could have predicted these were calorie killers. Well, now you have confirmation! But now that you know, do these calories scare you like they do us?

(Washington City Paper) — Tuesday morning marked a starchy celebration on Irving Street NW in Columbia Heights: The grand opening of IHOP’s 1,500th location, complete with a dancing pancake, free short stacks of pancakes, and a Washington Monument shaped out of…you get the picture. Inside, IHOP execs visiting from California for the occasion congregated in the back room, while D.C. politicians wore royal blue IHOP cardigans and were presented with commemorative spatulas before digging into their complimentary breakfast.  It’s only fitting that IHOP should be fêting the locals. The owners are, after all, benefiting from $46.9 million in tax increment financing the city earmarked to build the DCUSA shopping complex in 2006. Developer Grid Properties agreed to set aside 15,000 square feet for small, local, minority-owned businesses, which would get an approximately 30 percent discount on rent in those spaces.

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