Staring down a new year’s resolution looks a little different for actress Melissa Joan Hart this year. Now in what she’s calling maintenance, the star of Melissa and Joey is “no longer trying to lose weight, just to maintain a healthy lifestyle.” That’s her goal for 2024, when she will celebrate a one year anniversary as spokeswoman and client of Nutrisystem.

After delivering her third son in fall of 2024, she, like just about most women, had postpartum weight to lose. She turned to the meal delivery diet, which she calls “a little lifesaver,” and it has helped her get back to her fighting weight, so to speak.

“It’s a simple system for any mom to use,” she told us. “It takes the guesswork out.”

Any mom is faced with the seemingly daunting task of getting back in shape after delivering a child, but in Hollywood, the pressure is almost cruel. Hart told us that this group of famous moms are “ridiculed, almost like bullied,” and says it’s tricky being in the spotlight because “everyone wants to see how fast you can lose it.” She calls the situation unfair, but digresses that “it’s our job, it’s what we do.” And for this busy working (and acting) mom of three, it’s good motivation “to be as healthy as I can while putting my children first.”

She admitted to rushing through breastfeeding in the past so that she could start a crash diet and lose the weight, but that wasn’t the case this time around. Almost six months after delivering her third son, she started Nutrisystem. Thanks to the ease and variety of the brand’s wide menu, the only resolution Hart is taking on this year has a lot more heart itself. “I’m focused on my children and more playtime with them,” she said.

While Melissa may have felt the media pressures to lose the baby weight, the motivation to lose the weight came from within. “I was sick of saying ‘Oh! I’m so stuffed’ after every meal,” she quipped. She says, like her, most of us need to accept the fact that not every meal can be Thanksgiving. She enjoys the built-in portion control that Nutrisystem has “done correctly for you.”

She mostly eats the pantry-ready meals, those without the need of refrigeration or freezing, and the frozen goodies for dessert. Her favorite is the pasta, specifically the ravioli! And because it only requires a quick few minutes in the microwave, she can heat, eat, and go just about anywhere.

Her schedule made us weak in the knees, noting a wake-up call of 5:30 am and obligations that run well in to the night. Between production on a new season of Melissa and Joey, the release of her new book Melissa Explains It All, charity functions, and of course the family that she clearly adores, Melissa is sympathetic to the problem most moms face — shower or eat?

For her, Nutrisystem is that answer. “I don’t feel hungry. I don’t feel like I’m dieting,” she told us.

That schedule is too busy to get Melissa in to the gym right now. “I don’t have time for a trainer even if one came to my house,” she shared, bursting the bubble that all Hollywood stars are catered to by fitness gurus. Instead, it’s much easier to identify with Melissa as the harried working mom who wants to be in shape for herself and her family and can’t quite fit it all in. However, her Nutrisystem counselor says that having three boys definitely counts as her three fitness activities a day. “You’re good!” she was told.

“My life is absolute chaos,” she laughed. “And trying to get to the gym is pretty much impossible.” So she relies heavily on the Nutrisystem shakes and bars, too, noting how great they’ve been for maintenance as well as giving her an easy option when time doesn’t allow for much else.

For Melissa, Nutrisystem came just in time to start 2024 with a healthy foot forward and the ability to manage it all. And now, a year later, a weight-focused resolution is no where in sight, nor are the 30 or so pounds she lost this past year.