I leave out the potatoes, rice, bread and pasta and have an extra green vegetable. It is quite easy to cope in restaurants with this strategy. Reject anything with pastry. Breakfast is a bit harder – I have eggs on spinach (fresh from the garden isn’t sloppy), or have yoghurt, nuts and fruit.
Lunch – hummus and carrot/cucumber sticks is a favourite, smoked mackerel pate, (smoked mackerel mushed up with yoghurt), and salad is good.
The sugar reduction thing I cope with by rejecting anything with sugar as a main ingredient, so no jam, cakes or sweets, but I don’t fuss if a made up dish has a spoonful of the white stuff in it.
Good luck, its a big change to make.