A ketogenic friendly style lunch!

After posting a short piece on counting calories in raw versus cooked hamburger patties, I decided to go that route for lunch on an otherwise nondescript Saturday in September!

My approach to dieting, in general is to go for a ketogenic approach which emphasizes a low carb high protein method of eating. This is a proven path to weight loss that is not without some cautionary warnings for people with certain health conditions.

Quarter pound, 4 oz, 113 grams!

OK, so my approach for this particular meal was to eliminate the buns, throw on a slice of onion and garnish with a side of Lima beans. Why Lima beans? Well, Lima beans are a very good source of cholesterol-lowering fiber, (as are most other legumes). In addition to lowering cholesterol, Lima beans high fiber content prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly after a meal, making these beans an especially good choice for individuals with diabetes, insulin resistance or hypoglycemia. So, a high protein and fiber addition to this meal was not a bad thing!

When I cook my burgers, I like to use an old Joe Foreman grill. The design insures that a lot of the grease will be drained from the finished burger. After cooking, three on a slice of white onion along with a generous amount of ketchup. The pat of butter was the real thing while the salt I used was potassium chloride not table salt.

The end nutritional result? 260 calories, 15 carbs, 15 grams of fat and 16 grams of protein! The meal was also delicious and filling!

The ETM Core breakfast! It's what's good for you!

Core Ingredients: An egg (made your way), a slice of toast and a cup of 2% milk! Other ingredients: a simple Romaine salad with Catalina dressing and mandarin oranges.

As a highly nutritious breakfast, an ETM Core breakfast has a lot going for it!

Eggs: OK yes, eating an egg brings with it a lot of cholesterol. Is that good or bad? Something that the nutritionists will be debating for ever. So, if you're afraid of consuming eggs, please stop reading and move on. On the good side of things, eggs are almost the perfect form of protein! So good, that little, if any 'detritus' survives the passage through the intestines. About 99% is absorbed and thus utilized by the body's cells...

Quote: “If you're ever stuck on a desert island and you get to pick one food to live on, choose eggs. They're as close to a perfect food as you can get. They contain more vitamins and essential protein building blocks than any other common kind of food, and they won't raise your blood sugar or insulin levels a bit. Don't worry too much about the cholesterol. You don't get high blood cholesterol from eating cholesterol, you inherit it from your parents.”

Toast: We all need some carbohydrates to help jump start our bodies in the morning. However did you know...”Similar to other carbohydrate sources, toasted bread contains significant amounts of starch that provides 'slow' energy. Getting your starch from toasted bread is much better in contrast with getting it from eating normal bread. Actually, eating some kinds of bread alone without toasting them can raise your levels of blood sugar because of their increased GI (Glycemic Index) values. Toasted bread offers sufficient starch without any drawbacks linked to excessive starch intake.” Hmm, that's interesting.

Milk: We're talking 2% milk here. “One serving of milk is approximately one cup (244 grams), and one cup of whole milk has 150 calories and almost eight grams of fat. That's quite a bit of fat – out of that, 5 grams are saturated fat which is not good for you.

But you can get around the saturated fat by drinking low-fat (2%) or non-fat milk. That way, you're cutting down fat and calories while still getting all of the nutrients in milk. For example if you drink eight ounces of skim milk, that's just 90 calories. And, the fat will be minimal, plus it's low in saturated fat!

CPG = Calories per gram

Remembering that we're talking breakfast here, this core meal deal will hit you for only about 277 calories. Ergo: The glycemic impact of this meal is very low, your body is getting slathered with essential nutrients and due to the low calories, you can feel free to augment your custom breakfast plan with the fruit and or salad of your choice! [The meal as pictured above contained ~ 466 calories].