Becoming A Nutrisystem Ambassador Has Helped GH’s Genie Francis Shape Up Physically And Mentally
Soap Opera Digest: How would you summarize your weight loss evolution with Nutrisystem over the course of 2016?
Genie Francis: The deeper you get into it, the more relaxed you become with trusting yourself when you’re not using all of Nutrisystem’s foods in one day, like on a travel day or dinners out. You start to really understand your portions and to take everything you’ve learned and have a lot of freedom in your life. In the beginning, I had a lot of anxiety about just sticking to what was given to me, and now I know how to order a meal and eat a meal.
Digest: Are you at a point where you are trying to lose weight or are you trying to maintain your current weight?
Francis: I’ve been doing the maintenance thing because I quit smoking this year and that was hard; to try to reduce and quit smoking is a little too much. I choose to do things now more gently. This is real life, and I guess you could put all those pressures on yourself at once, but I don’t do well when I do that. Would I like to go back into it and take another stab at [losing]? Yes. I’ve got more than a year under my belt without nicotine and I feel really good. But I didn’t really try to make myself lose weight this year, and I’m glad because if I had not been successful with quitting smoking, I think it would have just started my snowball going backward — that deconstructive snowball thing [laughs].
Digest: It sounds like you had the presence of mind and compassion for yourself to recalibrate your expectations of yourself — and that, to me, seems like another indicator of health.
Francis: Yeah, it is. That’s mental health right there. What you said that jumps out at me is “compassion for yourself” — and that is something that I’m starting to get with age. It hadn’t been there before, and I think that’s why I was so hooked into this crazy way of eating. I always had this panicked thing about going to work and not being what they want me to be. This sort of “relax and eat a meal” [mindset] is something that came to me through Nutrisystem. I never would relax and eat three meals a day! So for me to be eating like a normal person is huge. I used to have panic that if I ate anything it was going to make me fat; as soon as the meal was in front of me, I tensed up, which is a sad way to live.
Digest: Did you gain weight when you quit smoking?
Francis: In the early months, I did puff up a little bit. You get angry at yourself, but on the other hand, getting those first 90 days off of cigarettes was huge. I stopped weighing myself; I didn’t want to know, but that’s because I was throwing some M&M’s in my mouth. Whenever I wanted a cigarette, I was like, “Ah! M&M’s!” While they might be on the Nutrisystem diet, they’re in very small quantities, not as much as I ate. That was a big hurdle, but I felt it was more important for my health overall to have those cigarettes gone from my life. If I were to look at my life as just me as a celebrity, as a spokesperson, as whatever — if I put that whole career thing first, I would not have quit smoking, because there would be a hiccup in the process of losing weight. But I put my health first and to my great surprise and delight, Nutrisystem said, “Good for you. Take this time and do that.” I’m very lucky, and they’re very good people.
Digest: With your focus on maintaining your weight loss, are you still eating Nutrisystem’s prepared foods?
Francis: Let’s say I go on vacation to Hawaii. I’m not trying to bring my Nutrisystem with me, I’m just eating the food that’s there. But there are certain things by Nutrisystem that I love and that I don’t ever want to give up! They make this really delicious sort of [breakfast sandwich], kind of like an Egg McMuffin, and I love that for breakfast. Their vegetarian chili is my favorite lunch and I have that in my dressing room because I never know what my hours are, and if I am starving, I have a healthy meal to reach for. If I really want to take another dive into reducing, then I’ll go right back into their food [exclusively], because it works so well. Essentially, when I’m just maintaining, I’m eating on my own.
Digest: Give me a sense of a typical day of eating, assuming you kick it off with a breakfast sandwich.
Francis: If I’m not having a Nutrisystem lunch, I will have a salad with some protein on it and maybe a little bit of carbohydrate, like a tiny slice of a sweet potato or a spoonful of garbanzo beans.Dinner is very much the same; I’ll have a protein, a serving of a green vegetable and a small serving of carbohydrate, like a half-cup of rice. That’s a really healthy, tasty meal, and it’s enough food; it nourishes you and it’s not going to make you fat [laughs]. Nutrisystem teaches you to have your little snacks at 10 and at 3, so you’re never ravenous. Learning to feed myself is, I think, the biggest gift I’ve gotten out of this. When I started Nutrisystem, I went kicking and screaming because I just didn’t believe that I could eat that much food and lose weight. When I did, I was in utter shock. I realized that what I’d been doing to my body was a starvation thing, and on the days that I was really restricting food, your metabolism just stops. I’ve always lived under the myth that if I ate, I would gain weight, and I’m finding that eating is actually a way to lose weight, which is bizarre to me.
Digest: What have you found to be go-to items on a menu if you’re eating out?
Francis: I get a protein, vegetables — a lot of vegetables — and salad. I avoid the bread. If it’s great bread, I’ll take a very small portion of it. I love sweet potato and I know now how much is about four ounces. I can eyeball that, and so I cut it down to what I know to be the right size and take the rest of it off the plate. Basically, you learn your portion sizes and you go with that.
Digest: What about on a travel day?
Francis: The other day, American Airlines surprised me with a perfectly healthy meal. I was like, “You’re kidding me!” I could eat everything that they gave me. It was perfect. But generally speaking, I will pack my own food or bring my Nutrisystem. It’s all about being prepared and laying out your food the night before.
Digest: At GH, do you ever have moments like, “I’m stuck on set, but I’m supposed to be having my snack now”?
Francis: You know, everything we do at GH, we do fast, and I keep all kinds of stuff in my dressing room. I’ve got a little refrigerator and I’ve got hard-boiled eggs in there, my chili. I bring my salad fresh, I bring a piece of fruit, I’ll have a cheese stick. There’s never a time where I’m like, “Oh, my God, I’m ravenous and there’s no food here!” If you’re there past, like, 7:30, they bring in pizza — a big, fat, greasy pizza.
Digest: Uh-oh!
Francis: The truth is, on Nutrisystem you could have a portion of pizza and not gain weight and be okay. My problem is, I don’t stick to that portion when it’s pizza [laughs]! I just don’t. I know myself well enough to know what those button foods are and not to have them, but I swear to God, it’s always the friggin’ pizza! But anyway, it’s all about planning your day the night before. If you’ve really done that, you’re not going to get into trouble.
Digest: Do you allow yourself “cheat foods” — and if so, what do you reach for?
Francis: I try to reach out for a savory, like a salty pretzel, something salty-crunchy, because with salty-crunch, I can have a little and stop. Sweets are my button, so my personal choice is not to go there, because that’s typically where I’m going to have more than I should. I know that about myself. An apple with a little bit of cheese on it is delicious; I can have something like that and have it be in a proportion. I stick to things that I can do that with, and I avoid things that are going to make that more challenging.
Digest: What are you doing these days on the exercise front?
Francis: I walk, actually. Now that I don’t smoke anymore, I can do a lot of walking; I can easily do three-and-a-half miles at a time. I end up doing it maybe three times a week. I even found out that I could run again, and I loved that — and then I hurt my knees [laughs]. I can’t run because my knees are too old! But I find I can get just as much of a sweat going by walking fast uphill as I could by running. My daughter [Elizabeth, 19] is a yoga instructor, so she will do that with me, and it’s great because I have a bad back and it’s the most helpful thing for the pain in my spine.
Digest: What would you say to someone who might be reading this and dealing with the same kind of self-doubt that you had at the beginning of your affiliation with Nutrisystem, thinking, “Well, Genie did this, but I couldn’t do it”?
Francis: That part where you sit around thinking about it and sitting around feeling sorry for yourself that you can’t do it is the most painful part. As soon as you take one step forward to make a change, there’s an immediate sense of relief. As soon as you pick up the phone or you take a step forward or you look into, “What diet am I going to try?” or “Let’s try Nutrisystem,” as soon as you take that first little step, the pain stops.
