...do you worry about adding too many carbs by putting fresh (or frozen) fruits into the mix? One of my colleagues, who is a pretty health-conscious gal, was admiring my bright green smoothie Breakfast this morning. When I told her what was in it, she seemed concerned. I asked her what was wrong, and she asked me, "aren't you worried that you're taking in an awful lot of carbs in that smoothie?"

I'm still pre-op, but trying to make healthy choices for my last 13 days with a whole stomach. Should I be worried that my smoothies have too many carbs, since I'm trying to eat a low-carb, healthy diet? I don't want to sabotage myself; and post-op, will it still be something to watch carefully when making smoothies?

(P.S. the fruits and veggies in my shake were: kiwi, cucumber, honeydew, pineapple, and spinach, with hemp seeds and Protein powder to boost the protein content.)

If you count the carbs for each individual ingredient it is a lot of carbs. And the point of the pre op diet is to be low carb in order to shrink the liver. You may want to do a lower carb version of the smoothie. Pre and post op.

It is going to depend on how active you are. Some of those are actually "good" carbs that get burnt off as fuel and not stored as fat. I might go to one fruit as opposed to two, but from a health perspective there's nothing wrong with what you are doing. Pre-op diets are basically meant to get as much fat off as possible in the shortest amount of time. Later on when you get cleared to have fruits, it should be fine.

I ran the smoothie items through MyFitnessPal, and the only big carb ingredient was the pineapple--of course that was the one ingredient that reaaaaaally made the mixture taste great, but hey, no biggie, it can be switched out easily enough next time.

Thanks for the reminders about "good carbs", Johnlatte. Sometimes I forget that "carb" isn't always a synonym for "evil"!

Those are all healthy, complex sugars. You don't get the insulin spike with them or the crash afterward. Personally I try to get most of my carbs from fruit and veggies now. What kind of protein did you use?

I haven't heard of anyone yet who got fat from eating too many fruits and vegetables. Again, good carbs versus bad.