Is cutting carbs necessary?

I'm a month further out and I don't eat veggies yet, except a bite to taste (cooked veggies only so far). And that really means a bite. On St. Paddy's Day I had 2oz of Corn Beef and 1 single bite of cabbage. I haven't had a starch yet. I tried a fresh strawberry for the first time today (just one) because I picked it! I some choose to avoid fruit as well because it can be a trigger. For me that's not an issue, as I didn't eat a ton of it pre-op. I plan to really only eat berries.

I do not plan to reintroduce starches or grains at all until at least goal. Not even the "high protein" or "multi grain" or "whole" ones. The exception being the little bit of flour/spelt/etc in recipes (so far the ones I've used to thicken sauces, etc have called for 1-3 TBSP per recipe).

Right now I eat 15-20 grams of carbs per day (total not net). If I have to eat a protein bar (travel, or whatever) I go a bit higher but I don't think I've ever capped 30g.

I still take chewable vitamins but have never counted those carbs. I am diabetic and do not notice a rise in blood sugar so I figure they must be nominal.

Another quick note, I do not care about fat and I don't eat low fat anything. Full fat dairy, fatty fish. I generally stay in my macros for fat still due to very small portions, but I don't worry at all about that as long as my carbs are low.

My three months anniversary in 3/22/17. I made turkey chili Friday. I used 97% fat free ground white turkey and one can garbanzo and one can kidney beans, both low sodium or NSA along with canned NSA tomatoes. That is all the carbs I eat. Earlier after surgery I tried dairy but made my blood sugar high. So now my focus is protein. My blood sugars are normal now without any medications. Truly a miracle.

Yesterday I went to Panda Express and had teriyaki chicken and order of Chinese veggies. Actually enough for two meals, and took takeaway box home. Still could not finish, just too much food. I know there is sugar in the stirfry process, but my blood sugar remained good.

Breakfast for now is one Premier Protein shake. Lunch will be my chili portion and smoked salmon for dinner.

I'm sticking with my current protein first at meals until I reach goal, and then play around with a little carbs until I reach a happy medium. 40 more pounds until goal

A few people lose a ton of weight and keep it off without surgery. But it's rare, and takes a lot more effort.

Some people can lose after surgery at a higher carb count. But it's rare, and takes a lot more effort.

At your stage, protein is a must, for numerous reasons. You really don't have enough room, or calories, for anything but protein and fats.

Protein first is always the rule. Don't worry about fat. I don't add fat necessarily, but I regularly eat high fat foods. The protein is vital to meet. Veggies are irrelevant.

Gummy vitamins are not a good option for us, much to my sorrow, because I hate (as many posters here know) all other forms of vitamins. They are harder to digest, have more sugar, and have far less vitamins than we need. Multiple surgeons and multiple nutritionists I've spoken to are cross when we take gummy vitamins. Centrum makes chewables that are decent and inexpensive if you don't buy bariatric ones. After several months, you have decentish stomach acid, and the sleeve heals, you could probably do tablets a year or two down the road. But, you're basically wasting carbs on the gummies too, and they may trigger cravings later on.

As for carbs, the question is: why do we store fat? It's complicated, but it involves insulin a lot, too.

Protein raises insulin too, as insulin breaks protein down into building blocks known as amino acids. Carbohydrate, though, we need very little of. Any extra is immediately turned into glucose which is stored as - you guessed it - fat. The body doesn't care if your carbs come from a sweet potato, an apple, or a piece of bread. While there's some argument that longer processing may reduce absorption, unless you have a malabsorptive procedure, you are going to 100% utilize the carbs.

I eat 50g or less a day, but some people also do well with 100g or less a day.

I've been in a plateau for over a week now, so I'm going to try cutting out the gummy vites and really watching my carb intake to see what happens. I go back to work on Tuesday so my activity level will increase significantly too, so I may just be confusing myself in the future as to what worked, but oh well.

programs are all different. Mine wasn't ultra low-carb. I was supposed to eat protein first, then if I still had room, non-starchy vegetables, and then if I *still* had room, fruit or whole-grain carbs. I wasn't given an amount of carbs to have, I was just told to avoid simple carbs and limit the complex carbs (again, only eat them if I had room after eating protein and vegetables).

When I was in the losing phase, I rarely got over 80 carbs a day following these guidelines. Now that I'm in maintenance, I average around 100. I'm also not particularly carb-sensitive like a lot of people are, and I'm sure that made a difference.

As many others have stated, every program is different. And every patient is a little different from the patient next to them, some a lot different.

I'm nowhere near a vet, I'm not even to maintenance yet. So this is just my experience, for what it's worth.

I cannot do ultra low carb. I get VERY ill in ketosis, it's the "carb flu" times at least 10, and it doesn't let up after a few days or even a couple of weeks like most people (2 weeks is about as long as I've managed to last in ketosis before I couldn't take it anymore... theoretically it would stop at some point, but I can't be that incapacitated for that long). Ketosis is at or below about 50g of carbs for most people (it varies a bit, but that's the general rule of thumb).

So I eat carbs. And bread used to be my thing. I could take or leave a lot of the sweets, but bread was heaven. I could eat it forever. So I have a worry that having to eat carbs will set me up for binging later. Right now, at 7 months out, I still don't have a drive to binge. I started therapy with someone who specializes in eating disorders about 6 months before surgery, and between therapy and the surgery changes I haven't had (knock on wood) the drive to binge eat anything. Even when I crave something, one or two bites of it is plenty. But I know I have to really watch that or it turns into 5 or 6 bites and from there who knows.

I've already seen in my diet that when I started out I worked really hard to keep sugar and simple carbs out of my diet. I stuck with whole grains and "slow carbs" to kep myself out of ketosis. It was initially very hard to eat enough protein to hit goal and then overeat on carbs. As my tolerance has increased, it's been easier to eat more food. I struggle with several chronic conditions and they're ganging up on me lately. When I physically feel like crap, it's hard to plan meals, prep food, and make the best choices. My weight loss stalled out. I wasn't tracking anymore, because "I got this", right? Wrong. When I started tracking again, I found that I was ignoring a lot of carbs in my mental calculation, and eating way more than I thought I was. For about a week now, I've been tracking again and working to get back to my original plan of no added sugars and focus on slow carbs, and I was down 4# this morning.

The vets know what they're talking about. If I were able to physically do a very-low-carb plan, it would probably be much better for me, because the slope is a very slippery slope. Since I can't, I have to learn to really watch myself, and I'll probably never be able to stop tracking.

And since I've already written a small novel here, I'll also rant a bit about nutritionists. Unless you're lucky enough to have access to a registered dietician (RD) you are literally stuck with the luck of the draw with the "nutritionists". There's no criteria for who can call themselves a nutritionist, and I've heard some of the stupidist nutrition advice from so-called nutritionists. Another board I was on referred to them as NUTs, and I thought that was appropriate. As a group, I've seen a lot of fad diet nonsense from them with little to no sound nutritional advice. I'm sure there are good nutritionists out there. I just haven't met one.

I know you've gotten a ton of responses but I'm going to respond too.

All programs are different. It sounds like yours is like mine - as in very little guidance. Mine told me next to nothing about anything. I ended up actually creating my own program from the advice of vets on here. Because on my plan was mashed potatoes and rice and pasta.

I personally believe tha****ching carbs is very important to success over the initial 12-24 months of the beginning. After week 3 I cut out almost all carbs completely and only recently loosened the reins with that. I fully believe that cutting carbs was part of what made me lose so much weight so fast.

I didn'****ch any other counts beside protein and carbs. Well and sugar obviously.

Most of the time I was below 40 grams of carbs.

You can eat the carbs if you want to stay eating them and they have a good change of calorie creeping you. Right now if your only eating protein and veggies that's cool. Then maybe a snack is 1/2 cup fruit, but.... you want something sweeter so you add some sugar or whip cream. After awhile sherbert is practically fruit, right? Then comes a shake, or a burger and why skip the bun.

The point is carbs for almost all of us are a real monster and if you can cut them out especially your fist year your results will be better. Also up till 5-6months out I couldn't have eaten 1cup of food unless it was mushy. Try to get your protein eaten and if your taking your vitamins there isn't a "need" for the veggies so have some but don't force them.