Too Few Carbs?

My doctor told me my calories need to be 700 to 800 right now. I was stuck for 3 weeks. I had started hitting my 60 protein and was under 2000 on sodium. My calories ranged in the 400 and 500s. He said that was too few calories. My body was in starvation mode and holding on to the fat, etc. When I bumped up my calories (2 weeks ago) I finally dropped 7lbs. Talk to your Doctor or NUT and see what they say.

Depending upon your individual metabolism and the types of activities you do (or seek to do,) you can be too low on your carbs, and what you are seeing in your workouts can be a sign of that (and/or it can be a sign of other possible deficiencies as well.) While controversial, there is a reason why marathoners and other endurance athletes carb load before an event, and that is to ensure that their glycogen stores (short term energy) are maxed out, while the idea of the low carb ketosis diet is to minimize the glycogen store so that you go into fat burning mode more readily. (The controversial part of carb loading is whether it provides any useful supercharging of the glycogen stores over what one would have from a normal balanced diet - something few of us maintain during the weight loss phase.)

A common bit of classic nutritional advice is to have a pre-workout snack (an hour or so before) that is moderately high in complex carbs (complex carbs so they absorb more slowly and stretch out the insulin response,) and low to moderate in fat and protein. I never went the ultra low carb route during weight loss (preferring to maintain as reasonable a balance as possible within our protein and calorie restrictions instead) and would hit a wall at about the one hour mark when I was swimming; using the high-ish carb snack approach moved that wall beyond where I could normally reach it. My typical meal for that use was a slice of whole grain bread with a slice of meat and cheese toasted on it (around 25-30g carb, 20ish g protein, 10ish g fat) but something smaller with similar proportions (say, whole grain crackers and cheese or peanut butter) work better for you with your smaller diet (I was one of those 1000-1200 calorie guys, but have the lean mass and metabolism to support it.)

This is something to think about and experiment with. The increasing activity and exertion levels that that we can attain as our weight comes off can mean that a somewhat different mindset is required if we want to shift our goals from simple weight loss to physical fitness goals that we couldn't imagine before we started this journey.

Good luck,

 This is very informative and something I have been concerned about.  I'm already scheduled for 3 races.  A 5k in a couple of weeks, a 3.5 mile obstacle course race in Sep, and the Army 10miler in October.  I have often wondered if my ultra low carbs would hinder me as I look to exercise beyond the 1hour mark.  As I've heard so many competing coments I may just have to see where I'm at and how it affects me.

While you have a good bit of fat to burn, ultra-low carb is not an issue.  When you get further down the road, you'll have to see.  Your needs will change over time, and you need to listen to your body. I 'need' more carbs now that I'm pretty lean and don't have a lot of excess fat stored to convert to energy.  At carb and calorie levels I easily handled 100 or even 40lbs ago, I get light-headed, shaky, tired, etc., now even with 120g of protein a day.  It's a YMMV thing.  Your brain needs glucose, and it will come from fat or protein in the absence of Carbohydrates. 

Conventional VSG wisdom suggest under 40g/day of carbs, 600-800 calories.  I would caution against, 'under 40g' becoming 0g. Most of the research I've done suggests 15g carb a day is the barest minimum you should go to, and long-term, 40-50g a day is the best range for remaining in 'fat-burning' mode while sparing protein needed for building muscles.  I was in the 30-40g/day range for most of my 'weightloss' phase. 

Me and KrazyDogLady are almost identical. Almost same surg date, almost same weight loss. I, too, have not had carbs during weight loss (would like to lose about another 9 pounds.) I average a little lower than KrazyDog, under 20 most days and I feel great. I also eliminated wheat/gluten last Dec 12 to eliminate the last vestiges of "wheat belly" I was still carrying around. So, for the last 15 months I have been pretty low carb and the only carbs I get now are from vegetables. I do 6 hours of intense exercise per week (Zumba) and never get tired or light-headed. I try to get a little protein before and after exercise. I did South Beach before my VSG and only lasted 3 weeks--I could not understand how anyone could do low carb forever. This time it seemed kinda effortless, I guess because there were so many other things going on after the surgery to monitor (supplements, weighing all food, tracking on MFP, starting exercise, etc etc etc.) I was so busy trying to get healthy and thin all at once that I came and went out of ketosis before I even knew it.