MELTING POT : Mex-Lite

A smile may be a smile in any language, but a diet is another thing altogether. Most diet centers target their programs to middle-class white women, which can be a stumbling block to Latinos who’d like to shed a few pounds.

Enter Dolores Green, president and founder of Esbeltez (loose translation: slenderness), a Chula Vista-based diet counseling company that targets the Latino market. It is determined to prove to its clients (who pay $25 to join and $6 for each 40-person class) that they can enjoy their tamales and enchiladas and still lose weight. “You can’t drastically change people’s eating habits,” Green says. “You’ve got to have something within the framework of what they are accustomed to eating.”

Esbeltez offers weekly classes in Spanish and English on how to incorporate good eating habits at home, in restaurants, at wedding receptions, fiestas and quinceaneras . It gives its clients recipes for low-fat, low-calorie tacos, refried beans, carnitas and other Mexican foods. (Esbeltez hints: Use corn tortillas instead of flour; egg whites--no yolk--for chile rellenos; vegetable oil instead of lard, and--no escaping this--limited quantities of cheese and refried beans.)

With offices in Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, San Ysidro, Escondido--and nine others in Mexico--Esbeltez is hoping next to expand to the Los Angeles market. It is also planning a cookbook, with Spanish and English versions.

Most diet companies focus on the individual, but Green says that is not necessarily appropriate for Mexican women, who “are more concerned about the whole family. Our plan focuses on saving money and feeding the whole family well.”

After all, she says, “We dig our graves with our spoons.”