Hi -

I'd love to hear opinions on this subject. I'm early into this and wanting to make some decisions.

First, my program does not promote low carb. They've been in this for over 10 years and said that they noted a real uptick in post op depression with those who concentrate on consuming a low carb diet. Obviously, they want their people to eat complex carbs, no junk, but not to concentrate on low carb. I know that when I read the Adkins plan ages ago, his theory for maintenance was than an individual needed to maintain a diet where they burned more calories each day than they consumed in carbs as the body burned the carbs first, then moved to fat as a source for energy. As long as you did not consume more carbs than your body burned that day, you should be able to maintain your weight loss. He had a process for moving back onto carbs where you went week by week and determined what your carb tolerance. A good friend dropped from about 300 to the very low 200's doing Adkins and has kept it off. Her personal carb tolerance is 60 per day. Above that, she gains.

With that in mind, what is the logic concentrating on being low carb when your entire caloric intake for the day is between 600 and 700, and that's for the lucky ones? I know we have such limited space we need to allocate to Protein first. But is it a bigger reason than that? None of us, unless our bodies have gone into complete hibernation, could be exceeding our energy burned with carb calories. I doubt that even the most carb and calorie heavy person is geting more than 200-250 calories a day in carbs. So does anyone have any idea why those complex carbs trip people's bodies up so? At least it seems most here who have been at this a while really believe that getting a bit too much on the carb side is a real slow down.

So I guess 1) do you agree that's true and 2) any idea why? And do you know your own personal tolerance for carbs and limit due to intolerance or are you just making space for the protein you need?

Thanks for any input. I'm thinking I may have to take a month and buck the process on my program because something isn't working. I've lost weight much faster eating 4x this amount on Weight Watches and that's starting to annoy the crap out of me. (That's literal: I lost 26 pounds the last time I did WW in the first month eating something like 24 points per day and that's leaving GVS in the dust. I know WW couldn't work for my lifetime but you can understand the frustration as I eat 1/2 of a scrambled egg for my "meal".)

My .02 and my reasons for low-carb:

It's not about the calories. It's about getting your body into ketosis, which is the mechanism the body uses to burn fat for fuel rather than carbohydrates. If you are eating carbs, your body will prefer those for energy rather than fat. When carbohydrate stores are depleted, the body burns the fat. That's why I am eating low-carb. Plus, I'm not prone to depression.

I agree, anybody can lose weight ingesting only 300-800 calories a day, but if those calories are carbs, especially starches and sugars, you will keep replenishing your liver stores of glycogen. Then you are using both carbs and fat for energy. It works fine for some people.

Once you break that carb addiction, which for me was very hard but Pre-op, I don't buy that low carb makes you depressed. I think there's so much more mentally that we deal with in terms of how we used to use food and that drastically changes and that causes some people to face depression. I believe in the low carb and I also believe simple Carbs are evil. I say this because it was so difficult to break the addiction and I lost a lot of weight on my Pre op diet!

I'm with Foxbins 100%. Plus, I wasn't able to workout, or exercise at all for 3.5 months so I wasn't able to move a lot to burn. In all honesty, I just didn't have room for carbs. I was told to eat 4 meals a day consisting of a minimum of 15gr of Protein per meal. I didn't have great luck with WW with either the points or the alternative whole food program. It'd take me 6-8 months to drop 20-40lbs and then I'd gain it back, and then some. I did do some things to cut carbs and increase protein grams. For example, using greek yogurt vs. regular yogurt, avoiding fruits because of the sugar/carbs, eating only green leafy veggies, but that is because it's what I wanted to eat. When I found things that worked (which was a struggle for me), I stuck with what worked religiously.

Just from my experience, I can honestly tell everyone that the months that I "let go" and started adding back in carbs (in all forms), my weight loss came to a screeching halt. And, I was still eating protein first for all of my meals, but I was slipping in breads, rice and pastas. And, any time I want to lose weight, all I have to do is go low carb around less than 50-60gr per day, and drop weight.

I think a balance diet is ideal, but when you don't have room for more than 4 bites of chicken, that doesn't leave room for any rice or potatoes! Some of us just end up eating low carb by putting Protein first. My nutritionist always wanted me to balance, like with one strawberry, 2 green Beans, 2 oz chicken, etc. all at one time. It just isn't always practical.

Another way to look at it is your body has 2 fuel tanks a primary tank (uses carbs) and a secondary tank (uses fat) when the primary tank is empty.

So if you keep on filling the primary tank with carbs over a certain amount for your body (some people can eat more carbs than others) then you will burn the carbs but will not make it to the secondary tank to use the fats.

I found this analogy somewhere and it made total sense to me. Hope this helps.

When I eat carbs, I start craving junk food.

Now that I am 2 years out, I can eat more than some people. I can eat Protein and eat some carbs too. I just know that if I do, I'll start craving more carbs.

I too eat low carb. In fact, I was just mentioning to my husband that I have never felt better mentally. I do suffer from depression occasionally and in the almost 9 months that I've been post-op, I have not had a single episode of depression. For me, that's almost a miracle.

I have to agree with what everyone has said about carbs. In addition to what they've said, I find when I eat them, I unleash a "hunger monster" in my head -- it wants to eat and eat and eat. When I'm eating low carb, I could care less about food and never really think about it. So, personally, it's the realization that I am carb sensitive and that I probably should keep my carbs to a minimum for the rest of my life. Now that said, I DO eat fruits and vegetables because they have Fiber and are good for you -- but the rest of the stuff, I don't touch it.