As you get deeper into your new way of eating and of life, it's important to make sure that you still have variety. Of course you don't want to fall back into old habits, but don't be too restrictive either.
Expand your food choices as much as you can now. This would be a great time to try new foods from your approved list, or experiment with new recipes or try supplements like colon cleanse elite or paraslim. Why not buy a recipe book designed for the diet that you are following?
It's also important to make sure that you are getting all of the vitamins and minerals that you need. There are two ways of doing this. Either you can spend a lot of time at a site like fitday.com entering everything that you plan to eat in a day and juggling with your menus so that you cover all of the requirements; or you can simply take a good multi vitamin and mineral tablet.
Some diets such as Atkins specifically recommend that you take a multi vitamin tablet every day. This is not because the diet is lacking in vitamins and minerals: even on Atkins induction, it is possible to plan a day's meals so that all of the RDAs are covered. (It's much harder to do this if you are eating a standard American diet full of refined flour and sugar!)
No, the reason that Dr Atkins recommends taking supplements is simply so that you don't have to spend time thinking about this. All of the bases are covered without us having to do the kind of analysis that can lead to food obsessions.
The definition of a vitamin is an organic compound that is essential to human health, that the human body cannot produce for itself. Minerals are the same but they are inorganic compounds.
Some experts have suggested that the reason that so many people on a standard American diet are overweight is simply because they are not getting the vitamins and minerals that they need. Products like white bread and refined sugar have been stripped of most of their nutrients. So no matter how much we eat, our body knows that it has not got all that it needs ... and we want more.
So covering the bases with vitamins and minerals actually helps us to lose weight. We can be satisfied with less food if we have all of the essential nutrients.
