Low Carb Hamburger Recipe and Carbohydrate Percentage Calculations

I hope you are all well and sparkly this October. At Michaels, they’ve already put out the Christmas decor for purchasing and we’ve not even had trick-or-treats and turkey day yet! lol.

As many of you on my social media already know, my hubby and I’ve been gradually reducing our intake of carbohydrates over the last several months. My husband just wants to lose weight, but I am under doctors orders to FINALLY get my triglycerides and glucose numbers down. Back in my youth, even before I had a weight problem, my Tri-G numbers always averaged around the 180-210 mark (normal is <150) and glucose 70-100 (normal is 65-99). Now that I’m an old woman with a tire belly, those numbers are just too dangerous to continue.

Even though we won’t initially be doing the strict low 20 net carbs rule, we are going to attempt my doctor’s recommendation for 60-90 net carbs per day. I would eventually like to try the 90-day Low Carb Challenge out since my aunt & many others have been so successful in achieving impressive weight loss and health benefits. Since our food history shows us averaging anywhere between 135 – 300 net carbs each day…any reduction for us is much better than doing nothing!

Since using the MyFitnessPal app and tracking steps on my Fitbit for a few years now, my stats show the biggest issue is too many carbs and not enough exercise. Pasta, bread, and sweets are the carb culprits at my house. I’ve taken many suggestions from my Sparkle Squad that do the 20 net carbs “way of eating/ living” (diet is a bad word). My aunt has lost over 90 pounds since last May and I’m so proud of her! She’s been a wonderful resource for me in alternatives for my addiction to pasta and ice cream. lol. She also referred me to an online company called Netrition that sells many health-related products, but in particular, they offer a HUGE variety of low-carb foods.

We’ve been taste-testing several low carb items for a few weeks now. The things I purchased were all referrals and review based…so I didn’t feel that I was buying things blindly. They have reasonable prices, too. Some things at my local stores and even via Amazon are actually more expensive than purchasing online with Netrition, which was a shock. Today’s product, Flatout Foldit Artisan Flatbread as it turns out…is cheaper with Netrition ($2.89) than what I paid locally at Sprouts ($6).  They’re 8 net carbs per serving and delicious!

Flatout Foldit Artisan Flatbread Grilled Hamburger Ingredients:

• 1 lb. 85% lean ground beef
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp A-1 sauce
• 1 tbsp grill seasoning (it contains garlic and other good stuff)
• optional: diced onions, green peppers, and mushroom pieces

This yielded us 4 medium sized hamburger patties. I believe the hubby grilled them on high heat for about 15 minutes (we like our meat well done!). Using 1 piece of flatbread in lieu of hamburger buns, we saved ourselves about 20+ net carbs! The flatbread just wraps over the top and bottom of whatever you put in it and was the right size to fit a medium patty and fixins’, as we say in Tennessee. lol. We did add 1 slice of American cheese to melt onto each patty towards the end of grill time.

I also served this with Spring mixed lettuce/ baby spinach, sliced avocado, sliced tomato, thinly sliced small red onion, Claussen Kosher Dill pickles, and Alexa Rosemary, Garlic and Sea Salt (skinny sized, not oven sized) French Fries. Very tasty! Even though I did still go over my net carb goal for the day, this dinner was actually not bad AND I had french fries!

Crazy Carb Calculations

For those that are confused about all the calculations of net carbs (carbs minus fiber), % of carbs, etc., you can get crazily detailed if you want to in fact…go crazy. Lynn Terry, a gal from my home state of Tennessee, runs the 90 Day Carb Challenge. She stresses to keep it simple and look at maintaining 20 net carbs (not the % of carbs) and 70% healthy fat from your daily calories. The high-fat ratio is important to ketosis and the 90 Day site explains it beautifully. Also, they have an excellent Facebook group with lots of sparkly support and resources. Since I’m not fully on board with the 20 net carb goal, I’ve not explored their group a lot yet, but my aunt loves it.

I was curious about how the MyFitnessPal hack was calculating my percentages and I located a document with the following formulas here:

• Carbohydrate grams x 4 / daily calories = % carbs
• Fat grams x 9 / daily calories = % fats
• Protein grams x 4 / daily calories = % proteins

I had 29 net carbs at dinner, which in the calculations for my caloric and exercise earnings formula wound up being just 16% daily carbs for that meal. My total net carbs for the whole day were 121 (24%) though. If I were on the true 20 net carb day totaling at just 5%, I went 94 net carbs over my limit (after adjusting for my exercise credits). For my actual Dr. prescribed 60-90 carb goal though, I only went over by 31 net carbs. Compared to the fact that most days, I’m averaging much higher net carbs than the RX, I’m satisfied with my small victory. I didn’t feel hungry at all. I didn’t even crave my usual 9:00 PM ice cream. Win!

Sorry that I don’t have a burger photo to post, but I didn’t think about blogging about this until the next day. I’ll try to do better on my next low-carb food reviews. I primarily make handmade jewelry, teach beading classes and edit craft videos…so my new low-carb experiences may not get a lot of traction right off the bat. lol. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in any low carb info I come across or what topics you’d like to see in my future blog posts.

Have a sparkle-riffic day!

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