Well it’s happened once again. We’ve gotten the wool pulled over our eyes one more time. It seems that those helpful little nutrition guides that a lot of restaurants and fast food places are providing us to make us feel better about our food choices, are loaded with a lot more than chicken nuggets. One could say they’re full of baloney.

A new study by the American Dietetic Association revealed that the “low-calorie” foods that you buy in restaurants and frozen meals from grocery stores may not be as low in calories as you think. What, you say? They’ve been lying to us? Yup, once again.

According to the study, researchers selected meals from fast food and other restaurants and frozen meals from grocery stores. All of these foods were listed as having less than 500 calories, or were among the lowest calorie items on the restaurant menu. On average, the restaurant items contained 18% more calories than expected, and the frozen grocery store meals contained, on average, 8% more calories than listed. These increases are not considered statistically significant, and for the frozen grocery store meals, are considered well within government guidelines for accuracy. However, these guidelines do not apply to restaurants, and some of the restaurant items actually contained TWICE as many calories as expected.

Think about that for a second. You walk into a restaurant for an after-meeting meal with your co-workers. You think, “I’ve got a handle on this. I’m going to have the low-calorie meal and stay on my plan.” And then, BAM! You get slammed with twice as many calories as you thought you were getting. Not to mention the little extra amount of fat and carbs that no one is talking about. And you didn’t even know it. Those sneaky little guys. And you wonder why you can’t drop the pounds.

Now, consider this: If you take in just 5% more calories than you burn off, you can gain 10 lbs over a year. Tell me, how good was that restaurant meal? Was it worth it?

So, what do we do? Well, you have to make your own healthy meals, and avoid pre-prepared meals from restaurants and markets whenever possible. And if you do have to eat out, be aware that that “low-calorie” meal being hawked on the menu may be just another load of junk food cleverly disguised as healthy.