Confused over Carbs

It seems that each doctor/nutritionist has their own guidelines for carb intake, which is a bit confusing for me. Are we looking at total carbs or net carbs? And what about sugar alcohols? I'm mainly wondering if those protien bars (that claim to be low carb) are okay. I'm still stuck in puree (surgery was 8/17) but I'm trying to plan my foods for the next phase. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to get to that phase at this point! Any insight on allowed carbs would be great! Thanks1 ~Toni~ 323/278

My nutritionist said to look mainly at sugar content, nothing over 10 grams of sugar. But then again my surgery was the 18th and I have been off of pureed for quite sometime now, so....every doctor and patient is different. Amanda M

I had my surgery on 8/24 and I have been on regular foods for about 3 weeks now but they told me to watch the ingredients on a package to make sure that the protein count was higher than the carb count. I try my best to keep my carbs low though. As far as protein bars go, I can only eat about 1/4th of one in a sitting. I was also told to be careful of sugar alcohols as much as regular sugar.

Your post scared me - only 1/4th of a protein bar. I eat one - whole one - every morning, but maybe yours are bigger than mine (I hope so lol) It's weird though, they claim to be like 1.3 oz. or something like that, but I would hate it for the person that tried to eat 4 oz. worth

My surgery was 8/25 and I was off pureed foods a while ago. I was told to watch the carbs, but no one ever gave me a number. I was told no more than 10 grams of sugar OR sugar alcohol. I use protien bars and for me, Adkin's bars are good because they are small, and most of the time have no sugar and no more than 3g sugar alcohol, and of course they're expensive. Good luck with the next stage!

I spoke to my nutritionist the other day and he pretty much said the same as far as sugar alcohol goes. My 'number' for carbs is under 12g per serving and less than 8g of sugar. He advised me to keep the sugar alcohol intake to a minimum. I've managed to ease out of puree, but food still gets stuck so I'm extremely careful about what is 'okay'. I was given Levsin for esophageal spasms (which is causing the foods to get stuck) and although it helps most of the time, I still bring food up at least every other day. Anybody know of a good low carb ice cream? I am starting to crave sweets and I'm banging my head against the wall with reading all of these labels! How about frozen dinners, like Weigh****chers Low Carb entrees?