[deb5217]

What is a good carb and what is a bad carb? I thought all carbs should be avoided as much as possible.

[Brandy F]

Well, good carbs are those carbs found in fruits,veggies, lean meats and dairy products.
Bad carbs are the carbs found in junk food, rice,breads, sweets, etc.

Stay away from the bad food with the bad carbs
Those carbs will get you if you let them because for a lot of us they are in the foods that got us to the point of surgery in the first place.

Hope that helps♥

[Perfesser]

You can't hide from the fact that you need somewhere around 90 g of carbs daily to keep your brain charged up and running right. It lives only on carbs. Brain tissue can't burn fat. So how to get it?

"Simple" carbs are highly refined. They are one short digestive step away from going into the bloodstream, where the excess is sent out to storage by the liver. Simple carbs are white sugar, starches (potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.), high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, etc. With our modified digestive systems, they go straight into the blood at high speed, so we get a sugar rush and quite possibly dumping. The sugar crash that follows has you sleeping for hours in close to a diabetic coma.

"Complex" carbs are those that need digesting. Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, etc. The stuff that's advertised as healthy, but maybe not the highly commercialized stuff. Not all that is marketed as "healthy" is healthy! These carbs take awhile to metabolize as they aren't in an easily usable form when you eat them. As a result, they enter the bloodstream in a more controlled manner, kind of like time-release meds (which we can't do any more.) This slow release and absorption keeps the blood sugar level more uniform and under control.

It takes a person awhile post-op to determine tolerances for carbs. Sugars = bad! Complex = good!

CT

[deb5217]

I'm almost 2 months out, should I start logging in carbs too? Right now I just do protein and fluids. I haven;t had any bread/pasta yet and very few veggies, Can't have fruits yet either.

[DocSanae]

Frist off, sugar and carbohydrates are often interchanged in daily vocabulary to mean the same thing, but chemically speaking, sugar is a GROUP of chemical substances with specific structures that define them, which belong in a larger group called carbohydrates.

There are complex sugars--often called complex carbs as well--disaccharide/oligosaccharide/polysccharide (the groups differ according to the number of simple sugars in the combo, and also the type of chemical binding).

The building block of disaccharide/polysacchride are the simple sugars=monosacchride=monose. So, somplex sugars are actually simple sugars chemically bound together. Glucose, fructose and galactose are monosaccharides/simple sugars. Sucrose, lactose, and maltose are disacchrides, with, respectively, glucose+fructose, glucose + galactose, and glucose+glucose as their particles. Cellulose, starch and glycogen are all polysaccharides.

In regards to eating post op.
Complex carbs are best in getting in your required carbohydrate intake because
1) It provides a variety of simple sugars when broken down. Particles that the body needs to build and run itself.
2) Breaking down the complex carbs takes energy, so, you will be burning stuff. If you got them all in in simple carb form, you won't be burning much, and will have a lot of material to build up in your body--not so good when taken in large amounts
3) Metabolizing complex carbs also helps push other metabolisms into gear. Simple carbs short cut this, which prevents the body from getting the necessary push to start certain cycles that it needs to keep up to keep the body healthy.

[MichelleA]

Do we have a list of "good carbs" somewhere on this site?

I need ideas and inspiration!

[laughingpainter]

Go to a carb counter site. I learned that there are more carbohydrates in lowfat and skimmed milk than in in whole milk; additionally, the lowfat yogurts have more carbs than the whole milk yogurts. Not a whole lot more but I didn't expect that!
Watermellon, my favorite fruit, has less carbohydrates than almost all of the rest of the fruits. Yeah!!!

[kiwi-leelee77]

My nut advises us to check all foods like this: sugar less than 10g per 100gm and less than 5g fat per serve.
Fruits should be avoided in "large" amounts but every now and then a small amount is ok, but watch how your sugar levels are, and you can feel the levels rise post WLS.
Veges are catagorised as free veges= low GI and good e.g. broccoli, beans carrots capsicums (peppers), etc. not so free veges are the potatoes, corn, sweet potato pumpkin etc.
I personally would avoid potatoes and pasta forever if i could and wish i had never had them again.. ditto with the nice/bad carbs, wish they had never been put in front of me. Cause I ate it.
A small amount of potato on a shepards pie is fine, but not the inch thick like old times, just a thin layer, but do it further out. give yourself a better start by sticking to the good carbs, veges and proteins that do us the most good...
*hugs* You are doing great btw

[MichelleA]

Originally Posted by DocSanae

In regards to eating post op.
Complex carbs are best in getting in your required carbohydrate intake because...

Thank you, Doc. You know, I am not an idiot by any means, but this has ALWAYS gone over my head, no matter how slowly people explain it, and no matter how small the words they use to do so.

I was a Type 2 diabetic for the last 6 years of my "Large period", so it was important that I understand the difference between simple and complex carbs, but it simply won't go into my head. Never did. And it may never do it.

I've read what you wrote here at least 10 times over the past few days, and yet I don't get it.

I know it's a head thing, and that my brain doesn't want to get it, but I will understand it, if it kills me!

For now, it's enough, I suppose, to know the list of things I can't eat. They're usually the things that make me crave more if I eat any at all. And I suppose I know intuitively what is and is not good. But I really need to let this information break through that barrier I've built in my brain.

(PS I know I'm still diabetic, but I've been asymptomatic since the day after my surgery, and even though I've eaten enough to gain weight, I cannot eat enough to blow up my blood sugar again.)

[PookPook]

If 'complex carbs' are good (and include whole grains), then are whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread considered okay? Does the admonition against bread and pasta apply only to the kind made with white flour?

Thanks for any advice!