Lose Weight Program > For People Who Eat Out

There comes a time in the affairs of dieters when they are invited to dinner, or have to eat in restaurants ranging from quick-lunch soda fountains to cozy eateries with a five-dollar cover charge, or have to pack their own meals in a lunchbox.



These things naturally interfere with well-planned diet programs. In a perfect world there would probably be a law about it. But an imperfect world is more fun, or if it isn't, we might as well think it is. So let's see how one can come to terms with diet when eating out.

What to order -- that is the question. Suppose you are faced by a full-course menu. Appetizers come first. Almost always, grapefruit or tomato juice will be on the list. Choose one of them; they give valuable elements with few calories. A shrimp cocktail isn't a bad choice, either -- good protein, and you needn't consume much sauce. Oysters and clams are excellent low-calorie choices.

Next come the soups. Pass up the purees, the bisques, the creamed varieties. Concentrate on the consommes, the bouillons, the clear vegetable soups. The latter fill you up temporarily but roll up a relatively low calorie count.

Entrees are more of a problem. Lean-muscle meats -- steak, roast beef au jus, cutlets that aren't breaded -- are the protein capstones of a reducing diet. Broiled chopped steak (in a beanery they'd probably call it hamburger) is good. Broiled lamb chops and similar cuts are popular in reducing diets if you can only steel yourself to cut off all the fat. In fact, with most meats you can lower the calorie count by not consuming accompanying thick gravies and sauces, although a little thinned pan gravy tastes mighty good and can be sampled sparingly. Pan-broiled liver, an excellent food, usually is prepared with bacon strips in restaurants. Reject the bacon. And never, never let a delectable chunk of salt pork pass your lips. That is, unless you're trying to gain weight.

Poultry and fish are first-rate protein foods for the reducer or anybody else. With poultry, the main problem is to leave on the plate the little mountain of dressing upon which the white and dark meat is laid. Often, considering the poultry dressings encountered in the mill run of restaurants, this self-denial will make no super-human demands upon will power. Fish generally can be ordered broiled; avoid the creamed varieties.

Vegetables to go with the entree might be a plain boiled potato (glazed sweets are out), any kind of cooked greens, cabbage, carrots, turnips. It is the cream sauces, the butter, the oils and flour thickenings that inflate the calorie count of vegetables-not the vegetables themselves.

For dessert, a seasonal fresh fruit is usually a good choice. Say, half a grapefruit, or fruit cup with most of the juice passed up, a wedge of cantaloupe, or a modest slice of watermelon. Of course, there is no law, other than an inner one impelling you to get your money's worth, that forces you to consume every course just because you're entitled to it.

Maybe you'll order a la carte and settle on a salad as your best bet. It may well be, but there are salads and salads. The chef's salad bowl of seasonal vegetables usually is a good bet, if one keeps.in mind the main fattening threat of almost all salads: their content of mayonnaise, olive oil, French dressing, and other rich lubricants. If these delectable greases are sufficiently viscous they may be dislodged in part by a furtive fork, and gravity tends to abet the reducer in some degree by attracting some of the oils to the bottom of the dish. Leave 'em lay.


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