NUT says to eat a lot of Carbs. . ? ? ?

We need ZERO carbohydrates.

We need protein, fats, viramins and minerals, and these things must come from outside the body. Zero carbs.

We NEED glucose for our brains to function. I see numbers from 30g to 130g per day. Many seem to think this means carbs, but they are wrong. 

Your body will produce glucose from protein. As a bonus, it burns some extra fat in the process, so that's a win.

If there is no glucose, your metabolism will break down body fat and convert it to ketones, and use the ketones as fuel. This is why so many advocate going super low carb, to put your body into ketosis, and start burning all that body fat. Eat too many carbs, and you won't burn as much fat.

This is part of the reason for higher protein and lower carb diets post-WLS.

Carbs are our body's primary source of fuel. As long as you stick to unrefined carbs (and don't add junk like butter and sour cream), and get your protein in, they are fine. This is what both my NUT (who specializes in WLS) and the actual science (as opposed to common medical myths) says.  My favorite carbs are also my primary proteins - legumes and quinoa. Also love strawberries, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

However, given our reduced capacity for food overall, it is probably better to eat vegetables and some fruit before starchy carbs, because starches fill you up so fast!

Best to avoid all refined carbs (breads, sugars, fruit juices) and any that are "addictive" to you  But then that's true for everyone, not just WLSers 

Carbs are our body's primary source of fuel ONLY because most of what we used to eat were carbs. You know, the stuff that got us obese.

What we WANT when we are losing a ton of weight is to use our body fat as the primary source of fuel. And every gram of carbs we eat -- especially crap like potatoes, and in losing phase fruit -- it's that much less fat we are going to burn. 

This is why post WLS diets are heavy on protein and low carb. That's the science.

Definitely disagree with you. I was eating potatoes at the very beginning and not losing weight at all - this was under my NUTs advice as well. After talking to the very well educated WLSers here I adjusted and cut out almost all carbs and have stuck to that for the entire time and the weight started coming off very quickly and is still coming off in my 18th month by sticking to that.

I will definitely continue to avoid carbs including potatoes

Our bodies cannot make glycogen out of protein or fats.  While it will make glucose out of protein and fats the process only occurs when glucose is low.  The process of storing glycogen will occur only when glucose is relatively high.  As a result, the two processes never meet in the middle and to "convert protein to glycogen."

So if you consider a little glycogen in the tank to be essential then a certain amount of carbohydrates are essential as well.

Yes. Autocorrect switched glucose to glycogen. I caught it in my above post, but missed it in this one.

I should add, that even most low-carbers still get plenty of carbs. Zero carbs is really, really hard to do. There are enough that sneak into plenty of foods. Same thing with fats -- even those going low fat get the minimum. But I think plenty of people would get well below their necessary protein if they didn't pay attention.

1) I eat lots of carbs, mostly in the form of whole plant foods, but I don't have any minimum recommendation.  I like to say that none of us got fat in the produce department.

2) The word need is tricky when it comes to nutrition.  There are no essential carbohydrates but all whole foods that contain carbohydrates include countless other nutrients that promote optimum health.

I occasionally get up to 1200 kcal/day at 15 months out, but I usually hover around 1000.  I was nowhere near that at three months out.

I do eat a lot of carbs for a WLS patient (up to 100 per day, but it's often less than 80), but they're almost all from dairy and veggies (I also eat one fruit serving a day).  In other words, the complex variety.  I very rarely eat rice, bread, sugary treats, etc.  But I'm also not very carb sensitive, so those carbs that I do eat don't cause intense cravings for me like they do for a lot of people.

I did absolutely no fruit, bread, flour, pasta, noodles, rice, corn, peas, lima beans, cereal, potatoes or sugar.  I did use skim milk in my protein shakes and I did more than 100 grams of protein a day.  I ate strawberries and salad a few times a week.  Most meals were meal only.

My carbs ended up around 50 a day during losing phase.  After I was fifteen pounds below goal, I added Julian bread, apples, and cherries.  Then I read that the Julian bread was a rip-off and stopped buying it after one loaf.

I found that calories are the most important macro and if they are too high it does not matter what else I do, I gain weight.