daily caloric & carb intake

A very rude & mean coworker has me kinda on fire right now!!!!! He insists that your body NEEDS carbs & calories in order to survive & by NOT having something like "30%carbs/30%fat/40%calories then you are doing nothing but destroying your body." A body needs 2000+ CALORIES to survive or you binge & over compensate. This "Iron Man" insists that "Your body wont burn fat - it burns muscle. If there are no carbs to burn, then it will go afterprotein which is the next easiest thing to burn." Yes, OK - i get that, but thats when you place the protein by drinking protein shakes & the body will then start to burn the reserves it has of fat & THATS HOW the body burns fat. "NO, ITS NOT!! ...Lose weight the right way" I realize that completely cutting out ALL CARBS is not the "correct way" to lose weight & that he is partially right about the binging yada yada. but the purpose of cutting out carbs for a short period of time & drinking a bunch of water is to PURGE the carbs & carb addition from your system. Losing weight while doing so is simply fricken icing on the cake (so to speak). MAN, it was a whole complete argument & im so frustated. How many flippin calories/day SHOULD an over weight person need to intake in order to lose weight? How many flippin carbs do you need/day?

The *average* adult needs about 250g carbs per day. Please note: average. My nut. tells me to shoot for an average of 100g per day.  If you don't get enough, brain function falls through the floor.  Really.  Plus, he's right that if you don't get enough carbs, the body *will* break down muscle mass to get energy.. that's why we have to push our protein so high to keep our muscles from breaking down and forcing the body to go to fat instead. As for calories, my nut. says 1000-1200 with excercise to lose.  If you are maintaining, it would need to be higher based on your own personal basal metabolic rate.

Thanks Andrea, " that's why we have to push our protein so high to keep our muscles from breaking down and forcing the body to go to fat instead.As for calories, 1000-1200 with excercise to lose weight. " thats what he's not getting.

Hi Ladies,

I will not lose weight until I hit 1100 calories/day. As for the carbs, I haven't found my magic number. I do try to keep them below 100, but most days it's slightly higher.

Bex

I got the same shpeel from a friend at work. You do need carbs but you don't need to concentrate on them. Carbs are in EVERYTHING. There are good carbs and bad carbs. White carbs (bread, rice, pasta) are bad. Good carbs are whole grains, vegetables, fruits... What you tell him is this. Because of surgery, my body no longer requires carbs in the levels that standard diets provide. I'm concentrating on protein requirements according to my doctor and he knows best. The carbs that I must eat are only good carbs and those are FEWER than the everyday carbs that everyone else eats. There are no requirements for Good Carbs only that they be good.  I haven't had 250 grams of carbs a day since surgery...Maybe once when I ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn myself but I paid for that, definitely.  Otherwise you can tell him to mind his own godamn business and take a hike...Which is a good answer too.

LMAO!!! Thanks guys - that made me feel much better about it :)

Here to help!

Oh these types!!!  Usually I just listen to the "know it alls" and then I say" Thank you for sharing.  I'll take what I can use and leave the rest!".........Shuts them up everytime~!  Guaranteed! Dancin'D

Thanks D - lol you got him pegged all right (a know it ALLLLLL).

How many flippin calories/day SHOULD an over weight person need to intake in order to lose weight? Honestly it really depends on the persons metabolism - I went and had a metabolism test done to find out how many calories I need to lose, maintain and gain weight. It also depends on the persons activity level. Sometimes an overweight person may need to eat less to lose, othertimes they may actucally need to eat more - there really is no set answer since it depends on the individual. How many flippin carbs do you need/day? My NUT says a minimum of 100g carbs is needed for a healthy adult - mind you there are carbs in fruits, veggies, dairy as well as bread - for a post-WLS patient the majority of our carbs should come from the first few and the least from the bread. My NUT calls for 30% of the daily intake be carbs for losing weight and 40% to maintain weight loss. The number of servings from the different carbs groups changes based on the calories but typically most of the carbs are from veggies, dairy, fruit and last starch/grain.  However, each person is different - some of us (like me!) handle bread/starch carbs better than others... some people must keep their bread/starch very low, others can eat much more liberally and still lose/maintain weight. A fellow WLSer said they got a test to see how their body managed carbs and found their body was more efficient burning fat than carbs... interesting! Either way I say 100g is the way to go - of that 100g only 1 serving should be the bread/starch. Dont let Iron Man frustrate you - I assume Iron Man is NOT a nutritionist and all meatheads have what they THINK is the best diet - its not one size fits all, especially when youve had bypass surgery.