Shows
Before Dieting...What causes weight regainIn this episode, I set the container for the next ten stories.Ten women between 40 and 60.✔️ Multiple rounds of weight regain.✔️ No eating disorders.✔️ No dramatic pathology.✔️ No extreme cases.Just the repeating pattern.✔️They have all dieted.✔️ They understand healthy eating.✔️They have strong intentions.❌ The weight still comes back.This series does not focus on food plans or motivation. It examines the structure underneath repeated weight regain using systems thinking.Because weight regain is rarely a simp...
2026-02-2407 minBefore Dieting...Systems Thinking vs TherapySystems Thinking Isn’t Therapy; It’s the Diagnostic Layer to solving weight regainWhen weight keeps returning, the default assumption is often psychological.That the problem is low willpower or self-sabotage.But what if the issue isn’t purely emotional?In this episode, I explain the difference between therapy and systems thinking. And how confusing the two can keep women circling the same weight pattern for years.Therapy works with internal experience. Systems thinking investigates the structure producing the outcome.They are not interchangeable....
2026-02-1708 minBefore Dieting...Listener Questions on Access, Agency, and ShameThe last three episodes on childhood food access, agency, and Alison’s story prompted a strong response. Many of the questions that came in weren’t about definitions. They were about recognition.In this episode, Bronwyn responds to those questions and stays with what Alison’s story brought up for many listeners; how ordinary food rules can organise eating behaviour, why weight often appears much later, and how shame keeps patterns in place.Rather than treating these questions as problems to fix, this episode uses them to deepen understanding.Key takeaways:Eating system...
2026-02-1008 minBefore Dieting...Allison's Story - What happens when food Access and Agency are missing Alison’s story traces how a tightly controlled childhood around food quietly evolved into adult weight gain, dieting, and a powerful shame system and how understanding that story changed everything. Through her experience, we see why “you eat what you’re given” can turn into years of fighting your own body, even when you “know better.”Three key takeaways:Your current eating patterns are organised by earlier rules and conditions, not a broken willpower switch.When long-denied food freedom finally shows up, strong pulls toward comfort and pleasure are predictable not personal failure.Shame behaves like a looping sy...
2026-02-0308 minBefore Dieting...Childhood Food Agency: When you weren’t allowed to choose. Most women assume that as adults they should know what ‘enough’ food looks like. But portion confidence, stopping cues, and self-trust don’t appear automatically. They’re built through early experiences of choice, permission, and authority at the table. In this episode we explore Agency: who decided what and how much you ate and how those early meal dynamics can shape adult patterns like dieting dependence, private overeating, and fear of judgement.This episode continues the paired theme with Access, because these two factors often work together to build the blueprint for lifelong eating.In this epi...
2026-01-2705 minBefore Dieting...Childhood Food Access: When you weren’t allowed to eat.The real drivers of weight gain start in childhood, long before dieting ever entered the picture. In this episode we explore Childhood Food Access. This is the autonomy you had (or didn’t have) to obtaining food outside regular meals, and how it shapes lifelong patterns like urgency eating, secrecy, and scarcity thinking.This isn’t about blame. It’s about understanding. Because you can’t change what you can’t see.In this episode, you’ll learn✔️ How focusing on reducing on current weight prevents you discovering the root cause of repeating weight patterns
2026-01-2007 minBefore Dieting...The 8 types of eating and their impact on your weightMost women with a long history of dieting and weight regain end up trapped in binary thinking: good food vs bad food, dieting vs overeating. It’s simple, but it’s also the reason the cycle keeps repeating.In this episode, I introduce a systems-thinking model that breaks the binary: the Eight Types of Eating. It’s not a diet. It’s a map that helps you see what’s really driving eating, especially under pressure. 4 Key Takeaways1) Binary thinking blocks changeWhen eating gets reduced to dieting vs overeating, you lose the d...
2026-01-1312 minBefore Dieting...What diets won't solveSummary:In this episode, you’ll meet Amy, a woman who’s spent over half her life trying to lose weight. Using systems thinking, we explore how her relationship with food was shaped by childhood experiences, family dynamics, and unspoken rules about appetite and body size. From stolen snacks to over-catered freedom, Amy’s story shows why long-term weight issues are never just about food.What You’ll Learn:Why Amy’s weight struggle didn’t start with dietingHow childhood rules around food shaped her adult patternsThe emotional logic behind overeatingWhy understanding your backstory is essential...
2026-01-0606 minBefore Dieting...Emotional Literacy: The Second Essential Skill for Breaking the Weight-Regain CycleEmotional Literacy: The Second Essential Skill for Breaking the Weight-Regain Cycle that connects you with your bodyIn this episode of Before Dieting, I continue with part two on the essential skills women need when they’re stuck in a repeating weight pattern. Last week’s episode explored the role of investigative journaling, how it slows you down, brings you back to yourself, and creates a space for honest enquiry about your weight.This week focuses on the second essential skill: emotional literacy.Many women caught in recurring weight gain feel disconnected from thei...
2025-12-1605 minBefore Dieting...The Bridge Between Insight and ChangeWhen women struggle with recurring weight patterns, it’s rarely because they don’t know enough about weight loss. The real challenge is making sense of what’s happening behind the eating, the patterns, the rules, and the emotions that shape decisions long before food is involved.In today’s episode, we look at how journal writing becomes the bridge between uncovering your Eating System and understanding how it operates in your everyday life. This isn’t about keeping a diary. It’s about having a simple, practical tool that turns vague impressions into clear, useful insight.You’ll...
2025-12-0912 minBefore Dieting...The Four Stages of Change (And Why Fast Results Never Last)✅ Most women think weight change is about discipline, motivation or the right diet plan.While these help, there’s more to it.In this week’s episode of Before Dieting, I answer a question from Michelle about the four stages of change in the Weighting for Happiness® Project and why permanent change doesn’t come from forcing behaviour.Women are trained to expect speed and short-term results. But recurring weight patterns don’t begin in a week, and they don’t change in a week. They change when women uncover the system that has been driving their eating for years.There is a predictable sequence women move through w...
2025-12-0208 minBefore Dieting...Yo-yo dieting is not a failure of willpowerYo-yo dieting explained - and it's not a failure of willpowerI've included a resource links at the end of these notes that enables you to map out your dieting model.In this episode, I explore why diets so often begin with intense hope, fueled by marketing and outside influences. The classic Yo-yo dieting cycle. Understand how your body's unconscious survival system interprets dietary restriction as starvation, often overpowering conscious willpower and forcing diet abandonment.Learn why abandoning a diet isn't a personal failure, but instead is a predictable outcome driven by your biology.Discover the phenomenon of weight "overshoot," where post-diet weig...
2025-11-2506 minBefore Dieting...Relief Eating: The type of eating no one talks about In this episode of Before Dieting, I answer a question from listener Karla about relief eating. An eating pattern many women have but almost no one is comfortable talking about. Relief eating is often mistaken for “bingeing”, but it’s something very different.You’ll learn how relief eating works inside your Eating System, why it appears suddenly, why it feels automatic, and why it’s one of the biggest contributors to weight regain.We walk through the three stages, so you can start recognising your own patterns with curiosity instead of shame.🎧 WHY YOU SHOUL...
2025-11-2212 minBefore Dieting...The weight of clothes🎙️ The Weight of Clothes: What Your Wardrobe Reveals About Your Weight StoryIn this episode, I’m sharing an exercise I’ve done with many women, one that turned out to reveal far more than any of us expected.It’s called The Weight of Clothes, though really, it’s a wardrobe exercise. I’ll walk you through what other women discovered and how you can try it yourself.What You’ll LearnWhy your wardrobe can act as a mirror for your weight history.How clothing sizes reveal unspoken rules about body trust and co...
2025-11-1107 minBefore Dieting...Family Food Culture - Part 3 - Ingrid's story🎧 Episode OverviewIn this episode of Before Dieting, I bring the concept of family food culture to life through one woman’s story. Ingrid’s lifelong struggle with weight wasn’t about willpower or discipline, it was about an invisible eating system that began in childhood and shaped her adult relationship with food. Her story reveals why diets can’t address the root cause and how uncovering hidden food rules can help women finally regain agency over their eating.✨ Key Takeaways1. Diets can’t defeat invisible systems. Ingrid’s experi...
2025-11-0410 minBefore Dieting...Family Food Culture Part 2In this episode, I explore the hidden lessons learned at family mealtimes. Across thousands of childhood meals, rules about eating, belonging, and control were silently taught and absorbed. Those rules still determine adult eating patterns today, often more powerfully than any diet.By revisiting your early food history, you can begin to see why willpower alone has never been enough and how reclaiming awareness of your family food culture is the first step to restoring agency over what and how you eat.Key PointsFamily food culture describes the unspoken rules and behaviours you...
2025-10-2711 minBefore Dieting...Family Food Culture 1 - AccessEpisode OverviewThis episode explores how the rules of childhood food culture still shape eating today. Family food culture is more than mealtimes; it’s the unspoken rules, behaviours, and permissions that form the foundations of an eating system. Unless these rules are uncovered, diets can only ever be temporary fixes.Key MessagesFamily food culture is the invisible set of rules you absorbed around food in childhood.These rules were learned through meals, role models, and permissions, not consciously chosen.Childhood experiences of food access and agency leave lasting co...
2025-10-2109 min
Happy Medium: the Adventures of Melancholy Helen PollyS2.E3 When Helen Met Dee Dee (Finale)Before the road trips and ghost hunts, there was the school bus, a dead drag queen, and a very questionable dealership. “When Helen Met Dee Dee” reveals how Melancholy Helen Polly found her wheels, her haunted companions, and her first big mystery away from home.
Produced by JHP Fiction. Created and written by Jay Hazen.
If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate and review Happy Medium so the spirits of the algorithm smile upon us!
Starring Lynne Hazen as Helen, John Kennard as Oleg, John W. Scoggins as the 911 Disp...
2025-10-1728 minBefore Dieting...Rethinking Weight GoalsMost women measure weight ‘success’ with a single number on the bathroom scale. That single metric is narrow, punishing, and often misleading. In this episode, Bronwyn explains why a range of measures makes progress visible, why SMART goals often backfire in weight cycling, and how to set outcomes that actually match what you want in your life. You’ll hear some goals are imposed from outside (family, partners, doctors, social media) and how ‘indirect goals’ like ‘I’ll be confident when I’m lighter’ can send you down the wrong path. We finish with practical, non-scale measures you can use right...
2025-10-1406 min
Happy Medium: the Adventures of Melancholy Helen PollyS2.E2 When Helen Met Dee Dee (Chapter 2 of 3)Before the road trips and ghost hunts, there was the school bus, a dead drag queen, and a very questionable dealership. “When Helen Met Dee Dee” reveals how Melancholy Helen Polly found her wheels, her haunted companions, and her first big mystery away from home.
Produced by JHP Fiction. Created and written by Jay Hazen.
Starring Lynne Hazen as Helen, John Kennard as Oleg, Janna Fletcher as Jewell, Kristina Molina as Jovana, Skyler Cole as Mông Không Có Lông, and Jay Hazen as the Dead Drag Queen.
"Smiles" by J. Will Cal...
2025-10-1031 minBefore Dieting...Questions can change your weightQuestions can change your weightIn this episode of Before Dieting, Bronwyn Fletcher explores how blame and shame hold you back from discovering the root cause of your recurring weight. Hear how the way out of this repeating weight cycle comes from the questions you ask.You’ll learn how:blame and shame shuts down inquiryinsight comes from asking shame-free and counterintuitive questionsasking deeper questions can get to the root cause of recurring weightPlease help other women find the podcast by leaving us a rating and review.Get th...
2025-10-0708 min
Happy Medium: the Adventures of Melancholy Helen PollyS2.E1 When Helen Met Dee Dee (Chapter 1 of 3)Before the road trips and ghost hunts, there was the school bus, a dead drag queen, and a very questionable dealership. “When Helen Met Dee Dee” reveals how Melancholy Helen Polly found her wheels, her haunted companions, and her first big mystery away from home.
Produced by JHP Fiction. Created and written by Jay Hazen.
Starring Lynne Hazen as Helen, John W Scoggins as Mechanic Shop Manager, Janna Fletcher as Jewell, Kristina Molina as Jovana, John Kennard as Oleg, Skyler Cole as Mông Không Có Lông, and Jay Hazen as the Dead Drag Quee...
2025-10-0328 minBefore Dieting...When food is love🎧 Podcast Show Notes – Episode 1, Season 2Title: Food Is Love: Carmela’s Story and the Hidden Systems Beneath OvereatingEpisode Description:Welcome to Season Two of Before Dieting. I’m your host, Bronwyn Fletcher, and this season we continue identifying the root causes of women’s recurring weight. Causes that diets alone can never fix.In today’s episode, we dive into Carmela’s story. A woman whose eating system was built on comfort, ritual, and family belonging. From joyful Friday night cooking sessions to the disconnection, she felt after losing weight, Carmela’s journ...
2025-09-3007 minBefore Dieting...Food RulesWhen it comes to weight loss, most advice stops at “eat less and move more.” But what if the real reason you can’t lose weight, or keep it off goes much deeper?In this episode of Before Dieting, Bronwyn Fletcher takes a closer look at the eating rules you absorbed in childhood and how they quietly shape your behaviour as an adult. From “finish everything on your plate” to “don’t be greedy,” these rules often run on autopilot, steering your eating without you even realising.Through the story of Joanne, you’ll hear how dinner-table r...
2025-09-2307 minBefore Dieting...Abandoning diets🎙️ The Human Face of the Diet Hope and Abandonment CycleEvery time a new diet promises hope, women everywhere tell themselves this time will be different. But it rarely is. In this episode of Before Dieting, Bronwyn Fletcher puts a human face on the diet hope and abandonment cycle by sharing Francine’s raw, everyday story.From the optimism of day one, to the crushing self-talk of ‘failure,’ and the deeper realisation that food meant love and belonging, Francine’s experience reveals the invisible systems that keep women trapped in the weight regain.You’ll hear:
2025-09-1508 minBefore Dieting...Why Weight Is a Puzzle, Not a Problem🎧Weight is a puzzle to solve, not a problem to fixIn today's episode, Bronwyn Fletcher helps us ditch the blame, step away from diet culture, and rethink what really causes recurring weight. Forget the old story that says being overweight is just about overeating and needs a simple diet fix. Bronwyn makes the case that diets aren’t one-size-fits-all, and if you’ve ever felt like a diet “failed,” it wasn’t your fault.We talk about how western thinking jumps to quick solutions, why diet hacks are everywhere, and why habits like “drink a...
2025-09-0906 minBefore Dieting...When chocolate is the solution ✅ In today’s episode, you’ll hear Melissa’s food story and the insight she gained from examining her long-term weight struggle, using the iceberg model.Using an iceberg as a visual aid can help us see the hidden layers beneath complex challenges like weight loss. It shows why the obvious solutions of dieting and calorie-cutting, only work temporarily as they don’t address the root cause of excess weight.Melissa, is a 49-year-old tech support specialist and mother of two, who has battled weight since her second child was born. Despite countless diets, she found hers...
2025-09-0206 minBefore Dieting...Getting off the diet roller coasterGetting off the diet roller coasterExplore why diets so often begin with intense hope, fueled by marketing and outside influences.Understand how the body's unconscious survival system interprets dietary restriction as starvation, often overpowering conscious willpower and forcing diet abandonment.Learn why abandoning a diet isn't a failure, but instead a predictable outcome driven by biology.Discover the phenomenon of weight "overshoot," where post-diet weight regain often exceeds the starting point because of slowed metabolism and increased fat storageHear why "low and slow" is key...
2025-08-2606 minBefore Dieting...Why you need more than a dietWhy you need more than a diet In this episode, Bronwyn shares the backstory of the Weighting for Happiness project and the journey she took to uncover what really sits beneath a persistent weight struggle. Drawing from over a thousand honest conversations with women, Bronwyn explains why quick fixes and diets never tell the whole story and introduces the three investigative programs she developed to help women finally make sense of their eating patterns.Key Topics:Why “bite-size” episodes make space for fresh ideas and practical insightsThe two most common patterns women experience with weig...
2025-08-1906 minBefore Dieting...The Eight Types of Eating – Seeing the Whole PictureThe Eight Types of Eating – Seeing the Whole PictureShow NotesMost people think eating comes in two forms, either overeating or dieting. In this episode of Before Dieting, Bronwyn Fletcher introduces the Eight Types of Eating, a framework that makes the invisible visible.From Functional to Relief eating, Bronwyn explains how each type plays a role in your food story, often operating under the radar. You’ll learn why understanding these types isn’t about rules or willpower, but about seeing the unique system you’ve built over a lifetime. And once...
2025-08-1208 minBefore Dieting...What diets won’t solveSummary: In this episode, you’ll meet Amy, a woman who’s spent over half her life trying to lose weight. Using systems thinking, we explore how her relationship with food was shaped by childhood experiences, family dynamics, and unspoken rules about appetite and body size. From stolen snacks to over-catered freedom, Amy’s story shows why long-term weight issues are never just about food.What You’ll Learn:Why Amy’s weight struggle didn’t start with dietingHow childhood rules around food shaped her adult patternsThe emotional logic behind overeatingWhy understanding your backstory is essential...
2025-08-0506 minBefore Dieting...Karen's storyIn this episode, we meet Karen, a woman determined to lose 20 kilos and desperate for the next ‘right’ diet. But when we mapped out her weight chart, she saw something she’d never noticed before, the connection between life events and the numbers on the scale.What looked like sabotage turned out to be survival. Her eating wasn’t a failure of willpower; it was a system at work. One that had kept her going through grief, stress, and pressure.What You’ll Hear:Why Karen thought her body was working against herHow a w...
2025-07-2913 minBefore Dieting...Hunger appetite hungering✅ Podcast Show Notes Episode Title: Appetite, Hunger and Hungering: Why Knowing the Difference MattersIn this bite-sized episode, Bronwyn is joined by Lisa for a conversation that untangles three terms that are often used interchangeably but have very different meanings: hunger, appetite, and hungering.Together, they explore:How hunger is about the body’s need for foodHow appetite is about the want for a particular food, regardless of needHow hungering signals something deeper and unrelated to physical hungerYou’ll hear Lisa’s experience and learn why common labels like 'bi...
2025-07-2210 minBefore Dieting...Food RulesEpisode SummaryIn this bite-sized episode of Before Dieting, Bronwyn Fletcher introduces the idea of eating systems, the quiet, often invisible forces that shape our food behaviours and keep women stuck in the cycle of weight loss and regain.If you’ve ever thrown yourself into a diet, followed all the rules, seen some progress only to watch the weight creep back on, this episode will help you understand why. It’s not about willpower. It’s not about motivation. It’s about the personal, complex eating system that lives beneath the surface of every food cho...
2025-07-1512 min
Before Dieting...Before Dieting - TrailerBefore Dieting… is the podcast that finally makes sense of why weight is so hard to lose, no matter how many diets you’ve tried.Hosted by Bronwyn Fletcher, a systems thinker who has spoken with more than a thousand women stuck in the same frustrating cycle. This show will turn everything you thought you knew about weight on its head.If you’ve ever started the day eating healthy but finished it inhaling chocolate and hiding the wrappers, this is where you’ll find the reasons. Using systems thinking, Bronwyn gets to the caus...
2025-07-0901 min
Knowledge for TeachersS02E10 - Bron Ryrie Jones on Responsive Teaching and Instructional PlaybooksIn this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Bronwyn Ryrie Jones, an instructional coach who supports teachers and instructional leaders to develop their expertise. She discusses the importance of responsive teaching and shares techniques to effectively check for understanding in the classroom. She emphasises the need for teachers to have a deep understanding of the principles behind responsive teaching before implementing specific techniques.
Bron also explains the concept of instructional playbooks and how they can be useful for schools. She unpacks the potential dangers and how to avoid these pitfalls.
Resources mentioned:
J...
2024-06-011h 18Knowledge for TeachersS02E10 - Bron Ryrie Jones on Responsive Teaching and Instructional PlaybooksIn this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Bronwyn Ryrie Jones, an instructional coach who supports teachers and instructional leaders to develop their expertise. She discusses the importance of responsive teaching and shares techniques to effectively check for understanding in the classroom. She emphasises the need for teachers to have a deep understanding of the principles behind responsive teaching before implementing specific techniques.
Bron also explains the concept of instructional playbooks and how they can be useful for schools. She unpacks the potential dangers and how to avoid these pitfalls.
Resources mentioned:
J...
2024-06-011h 18
Cue FootstepsThe Case Files of Eddie James - Episode 9 The Showdown CaseA convicted killer has escaped from prison and is considered extremely dangerous. Helen Lynette is really only dangerous to one person, though - her ex-lover, Eddie James. She has vowed to wreak revenge on him. His friends want him to hide until she's caught. Instead, he takes on a case, the curious disappearance of a renowned world explorer. Will he find her? Will Helen find him? It's a race to a deadly finish.
Check out our website - www.cuefootsteps.com!
CAST
Russell Banks / Eddie James - Richard Tatum
2023-06-1254 min
Legends of S.H.I.E.L.D.: A Marvel Studios TV & Film Fan Podcast"The Broken Circle" S3E9 & "Cheat The Gallows" S3E10 Runaways Series Finale Review (A Marvel Fancast) LoS317The Legends Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director SP, Agent Haley and Agent Michelle discuss the Runaways season 3 penultimate and finale episodes “The Broken Circle and Cheat The Gallows.” The Agents debrief you on how Runaways season 3 is the end of Marvel TV as we knew it since 2013, that The Broken Circle felt like a good finale, Michelle called Gert’s sacrifice, that it only took 3 seasons to get the kids working together with the parents, Tamar’s colorful wordsmithing, that Dale isn’t totally helpless, that the end was a weak magical showdown, that all the Agents wis...
2020-02-0647 minLegends of S.H.I.E.L.D.: A Marvel Studios TV & Film Fan Podcast"Left-Hand Path" S3E7 & "Devil's Torture Chamber" S3E8 Runaways Review (A Marvel Fancast) LoS316The Legends Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director SP and Agent Michelle discuss the Runaways season 3 episodes “Left-Hand Path” and “Devil’s Torture Chamber.” The Agents debrief you on the epic crossover with Tandy and Tyrone from Cloak and Dagger, Molly showdown with Leslie over her parent’s deaths, Gert’s DOS prompt joke, If Janet really does come off as Max Headroom, that they are looking forward to seeing a witch-fueled Molly, that the view of the hostile above ground was spectacular, what Left-Hand Path means (listen to the outtakes) and how it applied to the Land Of The Lo...
2020-01-3041 minLegends of S.H.I.E.L.D.: A Marvel Studios TV & Film Fan Podcast"Enter The Dreamland" S3E5 & "Merry Meet Again" S3E6 Runaways Review (A Marvel Fancast) LoS315The Legends Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director SP and Agent Haley discuss the Runaways season 3 episodes “Lord Enter The Dreamland” and “Merry Meet Again.” The Agents debrief you on their thoughts on the 6 month time ump, their favorite Marvel support group, the fact Agent Haley does NOT know who Max Headroom is ,free crow feather based smartphones for EVERYONE, Gert’s new fling Max, Morgan’s coven ceremony, how Runaways magic and tech might be more intertwined that we thought, the origins of Gert’s anxiety, if we’ll see Catherine Wilder again, why Robert needs a relationship p...
2020-01-2333 min