We have all probably been there. The extended family is in town and they decide to go out to eat. (Yummy!)
So they pick a nice restaurant and you look at the menu and wonder:
What would be the best for me to eat?
You order what you would think would be a healthy low carb meal, and when the waitress brings it out it looks fabulous. You carefully count the carbs and bolus and continue on with enjoying the conversation. Two hours later, you check you blood sugar and it has skyrocketed! This creates a problem as I become pretty crabby when my blood sugars get out of wack. Obviously, there was some hidden carbs. Maybe a certain type of glaze on the chicken breast???
You bolus again to correct, check two hours later and it is still out of range! (How much fat could they put in a chicken breast!)
How do you handle this?
If you continue to eat the same meal time after time you may get a better idea of what to expect, but when dealing with a restaurant there is going to be differences in how each chef would prepare the meal not to mention it would be pretty boring.
I would hate to over correct and create a awkward situation by going low if front of guests.
Calorie king only goes so far, as does carb counting. I currently have great control at home, but when faced with visiting friends or family for the weekend its horrible. I would like to figure this out before we plan our vacation.
Restaurants are difficult for me, too. Sauces and glazes, in particular. Not to mention all the butter that is used in the cooking.
Often, I will look at the menu and start modifying what is on the menu – asking for something without the rice or potato on the side, or without the sauce or glaze. Most of the time, I also tell them to drop the dressing on the salad – lots of hidden carbs and calories there, too.
I’ve only had a couple of place object to my changes – one was promptly followed by, “OK, we’ll take the check, then.” (Doesn’t work with a big group, of course.) The other – “Chef prefers to have the salmon served with the glaze over the top and on a bed of the wild grain rice.” Response – “Customer prefers it unglazed, without the rice. Are we at an impasse?” I got it my way both times, without having to explain why I wanted it that way.
For a big group, I will often call ahead and ask if they can replace the bread with raw vegetables. Most decent places will do something.
It is difficult. I always hate going to a new restaruant just for this reason.
But one thing you can do… always add an extra 20g carbs for “glazed” stuff.
If i know ahead of time where we’re going i look up the nutrition info online. calorieking.com has become my ultimate favorite. but if it’s spur of the moment, i normally average carbs of what i know. like a chicken sandwich one place may be 35 carbs and at another 50 carbs. so i would bolus for about 45 carbs. it is very tricky, b/c you don’t know every ingredient. then i just check my level more often to make sure i don’t go too high! it’s all in the numbers =)
In my country there are famous restaurants and I live in Lyon a city of gastronomie… not for diabetics! Since several months I count carbs and it’s really impossible in restaurants. For instance : they put sugar with carrots and not a tea spoon and honey everywhere, only for the taste. So I ask for vegetables: they swim in fat. And always hidden carbs! Restaurants are not easy for us.
For me, the hardest thing is the fat content. I can bolus for the correct amount of carbs, but if you don’t take the fat into account when you calculate the bolus, you will end up high, and the high will typically last a good while. Here is why, in an excert taken from an article in D-life:
“Other nutrients in a meal, including fiber, fat, and protein content, can also make a big difference in how carbohydrates affect blood sugar levels. Pizza is a good example. It’s infamous for causing a delayed blood glucose rise in people with diabetes. This is because the high fat content slows the absorption of carbohydrates in the intestines.” dlife.com
