Ready to begin MWL and MM

[CarolSoprano]

Hi! I'm finally emotionally and intellectually ready to begin MWL and MM. I'm a 50 yo female, have MS, and need to lose about 50 lbs. I started eating a vegan diet again in November 2009 (I had done the vegan thing after I was diagnosed with MS about 5 years ago but that lasted only about a year). Anyway, since I'm already eating no meat or dairy it should be a relatively easy transition to Dr. McD's program (although weaning myself from oil and refined carbs is going to be tricky - I love my pasta). I'm going to start with Mary's mini to get myself jump-started. Quick question: I love baked potatoes with dijon mustard on top and could eat them every single day. Is dijon mustard an acceptable topping? I've looked around the site and looked in Dr. McD's MWL book and I didn't see anything about mustard.

Thanks for your help and looking forward to getting to know everybody here!

[petero]

Hi,

Well, from the USDA database, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ I see that 1 Tablespoon of mustard has only 10 calories and 0.6 grams of fat. Even though this makes it 54% calories from fat (it does come from seed after all), eating it with a potato will reduce the percentage.

Based on my calculations from data from the DB, a large baked potato, flesh and skin, at 278 calories and 0.39 grams fat + 1 Tbsp prepared yellow mustard, 10 calories and 0.6 grams of fat, yields 288 calories and 0.99 grams of fat. At 9 calories per gram of fat, this works out to only 3% fat. This is less fat than almost all natural foods, except for the plain potatoes, of course.

The USDA DB only has "yellow" mustard but dijon is similar. However, it may be sweetened with HFCS or sugar, or have too much sodium, if these are a concern for you, or if salt and simple sugars cause you to eat more as they do for me.

IMHO I'd say go for it. The benefits of eating the potatoes outweigh the small amount of fat you'll get from the mustard. Once you have adjusted to the plan you can decide whether to eat the taters plain.

Good luck with your plans and goals,
Peter

[CarolSoprano]

Peter, thanks so much for responding. I appreciate it! I actually have an organic dijon mustard that has zero calories and no fat, although I understand that caloric and fat values can be off by a certain percentage. It has absolutely no sugars or HFCS, so I think I will use it because I think it will help me stick with the program. I'm ready to begin tomorrow morning (I was away in Philly for the last few days which is why I was waiting to begin until tomorrow).

Thanks again!

Carol