Low Carb Options When Dining Out

Even though we've been trying to save money by shopping once per month and cooking at home as often as possible, we like to take a break on the weekend and just eat out one of the days. It was easy before I started trying to cut out carbs and sugars, but now it's challenging to figure out what our options are at the places we go to the most.

So I thought for my use and yours as well I would put together a list of some common fast food places and their low carb options. If you're looking for low-fat, I don't do that here so you'll be pretty disappointed. Don't take it personally :P

Wendy's:
-Grilled Chicken Sandwich, no bun: 7g carbs
-Grilled Chicken Club, no bun: 4g carbs
-Any of the Burgers without the bun: around 3g carbs
-Spicy Caesar Salad, no croutons, trade the spicy chicken for grilled: 10g carbs
-Cobb Salad, with grilled chicken, no croutons, and choose between either caesar or ranch dressing (the other vinaigrette dressings have upwards of 15g of carbs per packet! yikes) 14g carbs
-Small Cup of Chili: 14g carbs

Chick-fil-a:
-Chargrilled chicken sandwich (all the fixings/sauce, no bun): 6g carbs
-Regular chicken sandwich (no bun): 14g carbs
-Grilled Chicken Salads: around 15g carbs (watch out for the vinagerettes, they run around 20g per packet!)

Chipotle:
-A salad bowl with any kind of meat, cheese, and dressing (leave out the rice here, but add whatever veggies you want!): 15g carbs (and you can order double meat...around 70g protein! woo)

Penn Station:
(This is really only an option if you're already having a good day and have some carbs to spare, otherwise I would stay away from this one. Unless you ask for literally just meat, cheese, and veggies, no bread, but then it's not a sandwich. )

-8 inch cheesesteak, mayo, meat, cheese, half the bread: 28g carbs

KFC, Popeye's, and Lee's Chicken:
-This one is pretty obvious...get grilled chicken, or tear the skin off the regular chicken and give it to a hungry husband! Without the breading, the fried chicken comes in at 2g carbs per breast, and the grilled chicken is obviously 0g

Skyline or Goldstar Chili: 
-Coney/CHili bowl: 8g carbs

Pizza Places (Larosas, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Richard's, etc):
-There are really no good options here with pizza...half of pizza is bread, and that's sadly just how it is. Not to mention their sauces are loaded with sugar! The only good option at these places are the:
-bone in chicken wings: around 2g carbs per wing IF they have sauce. Plain or with a dry rub they come in at 1g

Buffalo Wild Wings:
-traditional (bone in) wings: 2g carbs w/sauce, 1g carb w/rub

Frisch's Big Boy:
-Sandwiches without the bun will run at around 5g carbs (burgers and grilled chicken)
-crispy white fish: 6g carbs

Breakfast Places of any Kind:
-This one's pretty easy as well...avoid hashbrowns, biscuits, gravies, pancakes, waffles, etc, and go for eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, etc


Most Sit Down Restaurants: 
-No specific counts for this one as there are so many choices, but opt for non-breaded steak, chicken, fish, pork, or shrimp, and choose sides such as fresh veggies or a side salad instead of fries or pastas.



Well, I'd say that's plenty of choices for eating out and still trying to stick to low carb/low sugar options. See, eating low carb can be tasty, right? right?

I miss cake already.

Anyway....if you have any restaurants that have good low carb options that I missed, please feel free to let me know!