Winter is coming and that means all the holidays, the fun, and the potentially fattening and unhealthy food that comes with it. I have to admit, I tend to throw all caution (and tight fitting pants) out the window, but as we get older, it’s probably a good idea to start thinking about better eating habits, at least for the other 11 months of the year. Fran Lawn is a nutritionist, coach, educator, speaker and leader. He’s made it his mission to teach healthier eating habits to men who often fall prey to the body standards in the GBTQ community. I took some time to talk to him about his journey and how he’s here to help with his company, Silver Fox.
Where do you hail from?
I grew up in Warrington, just outside of Doylestown, and I lived there and in the Philadelphia area most of my life, with the exception of about 4 years when I was in boarding school.
How did boarding school come about? You don’t hear of it too much anymore.
[Smiling] No, you don’t. I went to the Milton Hershey School from 6th to 9th grade. It was and is a school for kids who typically come from underserved environments or home settings that are run by a single parent. My father passed away when I was three, and myself and my sibling were raised by my mother. She saw it as a good opportunity for me. My brother went for a bit, my sister didn’t. I lasted the longest and it really was a good opportunity for me.
Give me a pro and con about going to boarding school.
Well, in my case, one of the pros was getting to go to Hershey Park every weekend! A con? Being away from home at that age. I remember being really homesick and missing my family. I adjusted, I did really well and thrived in boarding school, but in the end I wanted to be home with my family. So that’s why I left my freshman year. At that point I was 15 and my mother agreed to let me stay home and it worked out fine. [Laughing] I ended up going to Catholic school!
My mother went to a boarding school but it was for orphans, and she wasn’t an orphan! Her mother just put her there. She hated it.
Interesting; Milton Hershey originally started the school for orphaned boys, and in the late ‘70s they started allowing girls to attend, and then it went from orphans to single parent families. For me it was an interesting experience. Looking back on it as an adult I can recognize that there were certain values that I gained from being in a place like that. Just being my own person away from home and taking responsibility for myself. Learning how to get along and be respectful of others. Meeting and becoming friends with people from all different walks of life. I mean I was a little boy from the suburbs and lived and became friends with kids from inner city Philadelphia. We had things in common for sure, but that’s something that probably wouldn’t have happened in the suburbs of Warrington.
Sad, but true. Tell me about your siblings and where you fall in the ranking.
I’m the youngest of three. My sister is in the middle, my brother is the oldest and I’m the baby of the bunch. [Laughs] I’m considered the Angel Child, that’s what everybody calls me.
Awwww, such a good boy. So other than angelic, what were you like as a kid?
I probably would have considered myself a shy kid, but at the same time, I always enjoyed entertaining people. Whether it was putting on plays or dancing for everyone, I was the little entertainer. I think a lot of my youth was shaped by my sexuality and knowing somehow that I was different. I didn’t necessarily know why or how, but I knew that I was different. But overall, it was a good childhood. Definitely different then what my kids have now. We had so much more independence.
That’s for sure. What did you end up doing after high school?
I went initially to Bucks County Community College to get some credits in while I figured out what I wanted to do. It was there that I began to think of art as a profession. I’d always been interested in art and remember taking a class and thinking “Wow! I’m actually pretty good at this,” but I never pursued it. I later transferred to Delaware Valley College, now university, and enrolled in environmental science.
In my late teens I’d really started being concerned about the environment. A few semesters in at school, I was taking a class on soil. We had a design professor come in to do a lecture on landscape design, and it was like a lightbulb went on for me. It was science and art together and really allowed me to hone my artistic skills but bring science into the mix as well. I LOVED it and immersed myself in it. I was putting together perennial gardens at home for my mom and I became a big plant nerd, going on hikes with my friends and identifying every plant we passed.
It took me about 6 years to get through school, and as much as I loved it, I was getting a little burned out. So I took a break and got involved in theater, which had always been another passion of mine. I worked with a lot of regional companies for a number of years and did pretty well. But then I got to the point where I missed working with nature. I ended up getting a fellowship for 3 years with Jenkins Arboretum in Devon which was estate management and horticulture on a 15 acre estate. I met my wife in the city right before working at Jenkins, and then she moved out to the suburbs as well and we got engaged. We left just after the fellowship was over. I ended up getting a job at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education where I was the Assistant Director of landscape ecology. That’s also where I met your old friend and neighbor Erin Johnson.
Erin is the best!
Yes, she is. That was a cool job, I was in charge of overseeing and restoring about 500 acres of land. I got married in 2003 and my son was born in ’06. In ’09 we had that economic downturn and I got laid off and became a stay-at-home dad. It was wonderful, but after a year I got a job with the Pennsylvania Horticultural society running a program called Roots to Re-entry, a job training program for people coming out of the prison system. After that, in 2010, my second son was born. And in 2014, I came out!
How did that go?
It was really, really hard but we went into couples therapy, not to get back together but to figure out how to co-parent our boys who were then 3 and 7. I moved out but we fostered a new relationship with each other that I’m very grateful for and our children have benefited from.
You mentioned that you knew you felt different as a kid, when did you come to understand what it meant and what was the catalyst in 2014 to come out?
Yes, I think I’ve always known but, especially going into my teens, there was a fear and probably some internal homophobia on my part. Being afraid I wouldn’t be accepted, that was my mantra. I felt my life would be over and I struggled with it throughout my life and I think I denied it even to myself. I will say that when I did meet my wife, it was real, it wasn’t about hiding something; there was a deep love and appreciation there. But in the end I recognized that I wasn’t being true to myself. I met a few gay men in similar situations or who had been where I was but had come out, and I realized that I wasn’t being my authentic self. I remember telling myself, “I can’t raise my kids telling them to be truthful and to express themselves as people when I can’t do it myself.” So with a lot of self reflection and therapy, I came out, and once I did that was it. There was no stopping me! After I told my wife, I threw those doors wide open!
I’m surprised that your time in the theater didn’t help you out sooner.
Yeah, for sure, I mean I had friends who were gay, lesbian, and queer, but I had absolutely walled myself in and convinced myself that those thoughts that I had when I was younger about being different didn’t apply to me anymore. [Laughing] I put up a good fight with myself! And keep in mind, I came of age in the late ’80s when HIV/AIDS was just becoming a big thing. It was scary and felt like another barrier.
That it was, so let’s fast forward to what you’re doing now with Silver Fox. When did you become interested in nutrition and health?
Health and nutrition have always been a thread running through. I’ve always been conscious of it, but I like to think in a healthy way, which is not always easy as a gay man dealing with body standards and a lot of the things that are prevalent in our culture. I was always interested in how my body and mind could change based on how and what I’m eating. In my early 30’s I started doing triathlons. It’s challenging, you’re swimming, you’re biking, you’re running and I became very aware of what I was putting in my body. How am I fueling myself to be better? I started to learn about nutrition as a tool.
At 40, I ended up doing a fitness competition and that inspired me to become much more knowledgeable in the foundation that I laid during that period. I’d also dealt with depression for a number of years, probably for obvious reasons, and nutrition became a tool for me to help manage depression and anxiety. I loved talking about it and tying it into my passion for gardening. Just before the pandemic, I decided to go back to graduate school to study Nutritional Sciences, and I landed on Penn State. I’d always wanted to have my own business. A little over a year ago I started a facebook group working with GBTQ men. I wanted to engage with other men who were interested in making changes in their lives. I want to help men break away from habits and patterns that no longer serve them as they age. I want to start a new dialogue in our community. I’d like to make a notation here, it’s not that I’m looking to exclude anyone, I focus on GBTQ men because 1) it’s how I identify, 2) I feel I can bring certain strengths to this niche, and 3) I think it’s underserved in this area.
That makes sense. Tell me about what you’re doing about it.
I started Silver Fox Nutrition to make a difference in GBTQ men’s lives. There are a lot of habits in our community that don’t necessarily promote health and wellness. There’s restricting and overeating, and a lot of the things that men engage with in their 20’s no longer work in their 40’s and 50’s. I help them break the cycle of unhealthy eating and transform the relationship between food and themselves. I do one-on-one coaching and counseling.
What’s that ‘Ah ha” moment when you’re counseling people?
I come from a place of curiosity and so I like to try to get to the root of things. For example, if someone has an issue with binge eating, they can get in a cycle that creates shame and bad feelings. So I like to explore the ‘why’ behind it and that can lead to understanding and eventually better choices. I hate to look at things from a deficiency standpoint, I’d rather say, “What can we add to your life?”
Beautiful. So let’s add some random questions to your life. What celebrity would you want to run a marathon with?
Jennifer Garner, I think she’s an amazing actor but I admire what she does as a person and she’s also involved in promoting healthy food for children and infants.
Best and worst Halloween costumes?
My best and worst costume was in kindergarten. I wanted to dress up as a girl and my mom made me a costume complete with blond brains made out of yarn. I loved it, but I got made fun of.
If you had to gain 10 pounds for a movie, what would you eat?
[Laughing] I could tell you the proper way to do it, but if you want me to go for it, it would be pizza every day. 100%.
3 sounds that make you happy?
The sound of a child laughing, the sound of a running fan, and the sound of a trickling stream.
Best thing you ever won?
When I was a kid, I remember playing a game in church and I won with my lucky number 7. I won this color pencil contraption where you could change the colors of the pencil.
It’s amazing sometimes how the smallest things stick with us.
It really is, the fact that I remember it shows you how much.
What’s a fashion era you’d like to go back to?
Ooooh, Hollywood in the 1940’s I love the styles from that period.
What was your favorite toy?
I was obsessed with airplanes, so any plane.
What would you put in a time capsule?
My mixtapes from the 1980’s.
What do you like to do for fun?
I’m an avid hiker! It’s one of my joys and solace in life.
Have you ever asked anyone for their autograph?
Yes, Michael Jordan. When I was at boarding school, he came to visit and this was when he was at the top of his game so it was really exciting.
Favorite quote?
It’s from Ralph Waldo Emerson, I’ll just give you the first part, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.”
For more information go to: https://silverfoxnutrition.com/.