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Eating Out on a Lower-Carb Diet
posted 03/18/04
By Joy Pape, RN, BSN, CDE, WOCN
It's easy to eat out when you're following a lower-carb meal plan: you simply stop, think and open your mouth!
Not in order to feed your face, but to ask for what you want.
If you remember these two principles—plan your meal around a protein source, and ask for what you need—you can make almost any restaurant work for you (except, of course, a bakery or a bagel shop).
Breakfast
Most restaurants have eggs, and omelets are a great choice. You can have a different kind every day.
Ask your server to hold the orange juice, toast and potatoes. Instead, choose Canadian bacon or cottage cheese as a side.
Add a cup of tea or coffee, and you've got a great start on the day.
Lunch
Salads are a popular choice. Don't simply think about the salad, however—be sure to include your protein source. You can try a chef salad, a Cobb salad, or a caesar salad with grilled chicken, salmon or steak, all of which are usually large enough to fill you up.
Some of the best salad dressings are olive oil and vinegar, ranch, and bleu cheese. Avoid the sweeter, low-fat dressings, which contain more carbohydrates. Order your dressing on the side and dip each forkful of salad.
Dinner
First look at the entrées.
Pastas are out, but you have lots of other selections. Choose a fish, chicken, beef, pork, turkey or tofu entrée, for example, preferably baked, broiled or grilled.
Add a dinner salad and nonstarchy vegetables, and you have a great meal. If your entrée comes with pasta, rice or potato as a side, ask your server to replace it with extra vegetables. Make sure the vegetables are nonstarchy ones such as asparagus, spinach, broccoli, or green beans.
Once you choose your entrée, you may want to check out the appetizers. Shrimp cocktail is a favorite.
If you want to have an alcoholic beverage, it would be best to select a light beer or a dry red wine. Remember to drink these with your meal rather than on an empty stomach. By doing so, you decrease the risk of low blood glucose if you are on insulin therapy or if you take an oral diabetes medication that causes lows, such as glyburide, glipizide, Amaryl, Prandin or Starlix.
Three Options
When eating out, always remember you can do three things with your meal:
- Eat it and wear it—in other words, eat too much, and increase both your blood glucose and your weight.
- Eat it and burn it—in other words, eat the right amount, have normal after-meal blood glucose levels and avoid gaining weight.
- Eat some and take the rest home in a doggie bag.
I choose the last two.
How about you?
Joy Pape is a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator in private practice, EnJoy Life! Health Consulting, LLC. She is also involved with Laugh It Off! LLC, a diabetes and weight management team, in partnership with a professional comedian, whose business is to educate, enlighten and entertain. Please send your questions to joypapedi@aol.com; Joy will try to incorporate them in upcoming columns.
Sample Restaurant Meals for Low-Carbers
Breakfast
 | Vegetable and cheese omelet |
| Canadian bacon |
| Cup of coffee or tea, glass of water |
Lunch
| Chef's salad with olive oil vinaigrette or ranch dressing on the side |
| or |
| Caesar salad with grilled chicken or salmon (hold the croutons) |
| Tea or water |
Dinner
| Grilled fish, chicken, pork or steak |
| Large dinner salad |
| Side or two of vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, or spinach) |
| A glass of dry red wine |
Remember that portion sizes and ingredients vary between restaurants. Ask your server about these, and adjust your insulin as needed if you are on insulin therapy. Check your blood glucose one to two hours after your meal to see how well you calculated.
Source: Diabetes Interview Weekly Newsletter.
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