Note: While on my 8-Point Fat Blocker Program, it’s best to take your supplements with breakfast and an hour or two after your evening meal. Doing so eliminates any risk of the Chitosan you may be taking with lunch or dinner pulling certain fat-soluble nutrients out of your stomach before they can be absorbed.

♦ Vitamin A: beta carotene and other carotenes—Good sources of vitamin A include yellow-orange fruits and vegetables such as sweet potatoes, apricots, pumpkins, carrots, cantaloupes, and other melons, mangoes, papaya, peaches, and winter squash. Dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, collard greens, parsley, and other leafy greens are also good sources.

Supplement:

I typically recommend to my patients 25,000 IU daily of beta carotene. Better still, at most health food stores you can purchase combination supplements that contain beta carotene plus alpha carotene, lutein, lycopene, zeaxanthin, and cryptoxanthin. Use the amounts as directed on the label. However, rest assured even if you make a mistake and eat more than the recommended amounts, it makes little difference. Our bodies need food supplements in certain amounts. A reasonable excess simply has no place and gets eliminated. This does not mean, however, that you should eat far more than recommended. Serious overdoses of such nutrients as vitamin A can be dangerous.

♦ Vitamin C—Probably the best known of all of the vitamins, this antioxidant is found in citrus fruits, cantaloupes, papayas, kiwis, mangoes, raspberries, pineapples, bananas, and strawberries. It’s also found in lots of fresh vegetables such as asparagus, brussels sprouts, collard greens, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, potatoes, and red peppers. Vitamin C is heat sensitive and easily destroyed by cooking or exposure to air, so fruits and vegetables should be as fresh as possible, and if cooked, should be steamed or microwaved only a short time. You can keep the vitamin C in cooked foods longer by cooking them whole and cutting them up afterwards, rather than before.

Supplement:

I generally recommend starting with 500-1000 mg. of vitamin C twice a day.

♦ Vitamin E—Vegetable oils (such as sunflower and safflower) are the main source of vitamin E, but it’s also found in wheat germ, nuts, avocados, peaches, sunflower seeds, whole grain breads and cereals, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, dried prunes, and peanut butter.

Supplement:

I don’t believe that you can get enough vitamin E from the diet alone. In any case, eating that amount of peanut butter is hardly a good idea! That’s why I often recommend to my patients that they start with between 300-400 IU twice a day. I take my vitamin E in the form of 400 IU of D-alpha tocopherol succinate, twice a day.

♦ Selenium—This antioxidant not only helps protect the cells from the damaging effects of free radicals, but may also help keep the immune system functioning properly. Good amounts of selenium can be found in swordfish, salmon, tuna, cracked wheat bread, sunflower seeds, oysters, and shrimp.

Supplement:
I usually suggest to my patients that they take 200 meg. per day.

*92\29\2*