Subway will make a salad out of any of their sandwich ingredients, and they're good. A lot of the fast food places have decent salads. Carl's Jr. makes a low carb hamburger with no bun. Even so, I don't eat fast food very often. Denny's has a great spinach salad with chicken, a lot of restaurants have dinners that are just meat and vegetables, but if they don't I ask for no bread, no rice, no potatoes and ask them to give me double veggies. Have never had a problem finding something to eat, quite often the people I'm eating with will look at my plate and wish theirs wasn't half filled with fries or pancakes or whatever junk no one really needs to eat.
Cracker Barrel has some really nice low carb options. I had their bacon cheeseburger...it comes without the bun, and a couple sides of veggies and I'm thinking the whole thing came in at under 20 grams of carbs.
Yes, Cracker Barrel has great options. They have the largest list of specific breakfast and lunch low carb items that I have seen at any restaurant. I had their one of the breakfast selections last week 3 eggs, 2 strips bacon, 2 sausage patties and 1 tomato slice.
Oooo I love Cracker Barrel. Their grilled catfish is fabulous. My only problem is that I can't resist one biscuit, one cornbread ;)
Subway and McDonald's have salads.
McD's can be with grilled chicken. All serve dressing on the side.
Salads get tiresome at Subway, however, since it's strictly the lettuce part. You have to ask them to jazz it up with their meats. I get tired crunching through.
I use lettuce wraps at JohnJohns.
Korean restaurants have "lettuce tacos" (I'm not sure what, if any, name there is for the dish...) w/ bean paste and grilled meat? They are pretty good, although it's easy to eats tons of them?
hahaha I agree, breads, rolls especially, all hot and butter are so hard to resist.
My favorite place is any place that has accurate carb count information in the restaurant or posted on their website. My favorite lately is Panera (they have excellent nutritional information on their website, so I can usually plan what I'm going to eat before heading over there). I get the tomato soup (without croutons) and a greek salad. IHop also has good info online; if I'm on the road, it's my preference for any kind of "bad" food because they have excellent omelets.
Unfortunately, a lot of places do not have available carb counts. So, eating out can be a bit of trial and error. I will go some place, order, and guestimate the carb count. I check my BG at exactly 2 hours and see whether I over or under-bolused. Then, the next time I go, I adjust based on past experience. I record everything in my NOTES app on my iPhone (each favorite restaurant has its own "note," with what I ordered and how much I bolused).
In my experience, this usually works. For example, we have a great little chain (Busboys and Poets) that I visit for lunch sometimes. It took just 2 visits there to perfect my bolus amount for a certain dish.
You will get to the point where your educated guessing starts to get better and better.
When eating something that is more difficult (like tapas or anything else that involves grazing or eating over a prolonged period of time), I have had moderate success in using the square wave feature on my pump. It's not perfect, and I usually still have to correct afterwards, but it's at least possible.
Any salad place is also a good option, but beware of salad dressings!! They can be loaded with sugar! Get olive oil & vinegar instead.
Finally, like Zoe suggests, simple is better. You will quickly learn which foods have more carbs than others and will start to learn how to avoid carb-laden foods when eating out. I can usually come away from a meal within range simply by avoiding the things I know will cause me trouble (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, etc).
Remember Mc Donald french fries are soaked in a sugar solution before freezing! That's why they are so good and edictive!
I agree with getting the Calorie King book, and if you have a iphone, they have a apps, I wouldn't be without either.The books stays in my purse!
Some of our local pizza shops starting making wheat crust pizza's available on the menu. I find it doesn't give me the traditional pizza reaction! and it taste great!!
i keep spray dressings in my pocketbook lol. certain salad dressings r carby. subway u can get a veggie sandwhich w turkey ask them to gut the bread lol they will its less carbs and i use my spray dressing for flavor. i recently made kale chips. they were sooo good. it was like a healthy potatoe chip but very low carb. i keep them in mybag as well incase im craving a snack. i recently went to an italian restaurant and had a beet and goat cheese salad w/ walnuts over arugala. it was delish n very low carb. i try to stick to chicken/vegetable/seafood dishes. pasta...bagels.. sauce and potatoes spike me terribly!
i agree w/ sprmom..calorie king book is gold! i dont leave the house w/out it!
I really like Panera, but I think you have to know that a lot of what they serve is full of sugar. Except for their Caesar dressing, the salad dressings are full of things like sugar and honey. I went to a meet-up with some local Type 1’s at a Panera. I had a salad and spiked like crazy. I couldn’t understand it until I saw the carb count on their balsamic vinaigrette. Things like chicken salad which could be a good carb choice are filled with sugar/honey.
So although Panera gives the illusion of being really healthy food, you have to be really careful eating there. I’ve had good success with the Chicken Tortilla soup, but unfortunately I was hungry when finished.
sugar is carbs ;)
Yes, but I think they actually pile it on by adding extra sugar to the buns.
I eat very little fast food. But I do go to restaurants and what I typically do is seek out entrees with low carb protein based cores (meat or seafood) and then substitute for the carby sides. I have gotten good at looking through menus to find a side a like and asking for a substitute. It is rare that a restaurant will deny a customer request.
And key things I do to avoid the "surprise" is to steer clear of sauces, they often contain carbs. Spicy flavorings are often lower in carbs, but watch out for sours. Also, the fewer the ingredients, the better you can see what the food contains. Some soup or stew can be a mystery meal.
I always get a cheeseburger plain no bun and fry which is about 50 carbs
Zaxbys salad with grilled or fried chicken no bread
Why would a cheeseburger without bun or fries be 50 carbs, tyler?? I realize you might mean "no bun but yes on the fries" - even then, that's a high number since a potatoe is about 20 carbs!
Yikes! What do they put in that stuff??
For those that are fans of the CalorieKing book and have a smartphone, the "GoMeals" app has the data from CalorieKing including many of the chain restaurants. It is self contained so it works even if you don't have an internet connection.
It's free too!
I find that Tacos (with the hard corn shells) are not too bad to deal with. For example,
a crunchy taco from Taco Bell is 12 grams of carb, a supreme crunchy taco is 15. You just have to watch the quantity!
You have to be careful what you choose, though, as the "taco salads" are 70g and the Nachos Bell Grande are 90!
how many carbs do you think the bread is for wheat 6 inch with the inside taken out?
Ok, so basically anywhere I go, I am picky.
But if you can't find "low carb" options at a place, you can actively MAKE a meal lower carb. Here is how:
1) Burger joints - take the top of the bun off, skip ketchup, get the smallest fry possible then only eat HALF of that. Even a "small fry" at McDonalds is about 50 carbs! yikes.
2) Panera's you-pick-two is a good option (too expensive) but good. I automatically gives you only 1/2 a sandwich and if you get a lighter soup that helps. Last night I got 1/2 smoked turkey sandwich on rye with low fat chicken noodle... around 40 carbs total.
3) We don't have Chipotle around here but we have Moe's which I'm told is similar. As I eat a burrito, I tear away excess burrito fluff and go easy on the rice. The rest of what they put in there isn't very carb-y (beans, veggies, cheese, meat)
I use the "MyFitnessPal" app on my iPhone and basically type the name of the restaurant I am in. Everything they offer if they are a chain will pop up and show you calories, carbs, protein, fat, sodium etc.You can get this on an Android too.