You might think that your dietary restrictions make you “high maintenance” or a burden to the restaurant staff, but servers and chefs are used to special requests. It’s highly likely that they’ve heard plenty of things that are far stranger than asking for your chicken to be sauce-free and grilled instead of fried. Don’t let embarrassment or fear of speaking up keep you from going out to eat or properly enjoying that night out!
At certain restaurants, some chefs even welcome special requests and see it as a challenge to do something new and to impress a guest. As long as you ask politely and make your requests known up front, most dining places will be more than happy to accommodate you. And the more you practice asking for what you want, the easier it becomes. It may not come naturally at first, but as you get comfortable and gain more confidence in yourself, and your dietary plan, it will become second nature.