How many carbs is to many carbs a day?

mgmagnolia · August 11, 2009

I used the same surgeon as Unforgettable. In their pre-op class the nutritionist taught us newbies how to eat with the band. In my notes I have written down that she wants us to count grams, not calories. This is the guidelines for what we are supposed to have:

Carbs: 45-60 grams per day

Protein: 60-80 grams per day

fats: less than 25 grams per day.

I've been using the online diet tracker called Free Diet Plans at SparkPeople. It is free to join. All you have to do is put in the amounts you are supposed to stay within. It does require you to put in a calorie amount for the day too because it's not set up for lap bands. But I just ignore that part and let it set it's own calorie for me on that. All you have to do is log what you eat and it automatically computes everything for you: the carbs, Protein, and fat. It will also track your sodium and Calcium and exercising. They have a little thing on there called spark points where you earn little trophies for your progress. You don't get anything. It's just to help keep you motivated. They even have a little wheel you can spin to earn extra points. :w00t:

LindaD · August 11, 2009

Way before I went the surgery route, I was a believer in low-carb. And I dont' mean "eat a bunch of bacon and no fruit" LOL which is what many picture when you say that.

When I'm doing low-carb, I usually stay about 100g per day or less. One woman laughed and said "THAT'S not low carb." Well, it's not Atkins-induction low carb, but it's about 1/3 of what the US guidelines recomment, so I would say a 66% reduction is low.

I find that even now, post surgery, when I'm eating well, it comes to about 100g. I track my food on thedailyplate too.

And while I started believing in low carb around '99, it was only last year that I read the Taubes book, but simply further convinced me that this is something to embrace.

Keep in mind, what we call "low carb" today is probably pretty close to what a normal diet was for 99% of the duration of human kind.

Also, Taubes does cover all the science behind why one does NOT need carbs for proper brain function.

I know that even our most prominent experts aren't in agreement on a lot of this stuff. You can talk as if it's documented fact just because it's in a textbook, but I can go out and find another textbook that has documented fact that disputes your documented fact.

It's just not as cut and dry as people like to make it out. We all have to choose our religion on this stuff, to some degree.

I think that 80-100g of carbs per day is plenty for my brain. Then again, my brain did fine when I was on 20g a day during Atkins induction phases back when I did that for a few weeks as I kicked off the low-carb way of eating.