counting carbs & dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory

[sf40]

It's a family birthday party, I have no choice.

About three weeks ago, my doc told me I am pre-diabetic. After a lot of reading and thinking, I decided to cut all refined carbs. After even more reading and thinking, I am aiming for daily carb intake of about 100g to a max of 150g.

So I just printed the nutritional information for The Old Spaghetti Factory and don't see a thing I can eat. Most everything on the menu would be my entirely daily allotment of carbs, quite likely the junky kind I am avoiding.

I am not sure what to do.

My first thought is to eat something before I leave and then just nibble on a salad or something. However, I just know this will cause all kinds of questions and I don't really want to get into the reasons for my dietary changes.

My other thought is to suck it up and order the best I can to avoid the questions. Maybe I can order a combination of appetizer and salad, and therefore avoid the pasta. Or get the a chicken dish and ask for veggies on the side instead of spaghetti.

Either option, I will ignore the cupcakes, which are sure to be store-bought. I am feeling really good eating lower carb and don't want to ruin this feeling with a marginal meal at this restaurant.

If anyone has any suggestions how to deal with The Old Spaghetti Factory when watching carbs, I'm very interested.

[allwayshungery]

Ask the waiter to bring just half and order and have a chicken dish.

[Glory87]

If I recall, they have a super great minestrone soup which was low in calories (that's what I had the last time I ate there).

[Seraph]

Good for you for planning ahead! I would find it hard to eat low-carb at an Italian restaurant (I LOVE pasta!). I also hate being the odd one out in situation like this, so I'm very sympathetic, but I think you can do it.

They have the baked chicken entree, and you can probably get them to swap out the pasta for some veggies or a house salad. On their gluten-free menu, they also mention that they have non-breaded chicken strips that can be added to any salad. And the minestrone looks good.

Good luck!

[sf40]

Thanks for the great suggestions!

I ended up having the baked chicken entree, and it was no problem to swap the spaghetti side with broccoli. That plus salad made for a decent dinner. Probably a little higher in calories than I would have liked, but I planned for this today with other foods I ate and will adjust a bit tomorrow, too.

My dad wondered what the heck I was eating, but my only comment was, "Mmmmm, doesn't this look good? I can't wait to dig in!" And it did look good!

Thanks again!

[synger]

I'm glad you found something you could eat. I looked at the menu, and I would have chosen chicken or the meatloaf, with broccoli instead of pasta. They're usually good about such substitutions.

[Karen925]

Good work. You are going to be at maintanence before you know it with alot of great strategies in place.