Podcast

Weighty Conversations

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

Weighty Conversations is a podcast about the human side of weight. Hosted by Dr. Spencer Nadolsky and dietitian Summer Kessel, each episode walks through one person's story from childhood to now. The ups, the downs, the diets that worked for a while, and the ones that fell apart. Less science, more real life. If you have ever wondered why your body seems to fight you while everyone else eats normally, these are the stories you have been looking for.

Episodes
9
Releases
Weekly
Typical length
36 min
On air since
2026
Latest episode
3 days ago

Episodes

9 episodes, newest first

  1. 009. Rachel Kosh: The Number Was The Wrong Goal

    Show notes

    Rachel grew up when a chocolate shake from your mom counted as a diet plan and spent college splitting her days between the elliptical and Taco Bell. Years later, she and her husband committed to their health together. He leaned out while she stalled, doing just as much work.

    But now she can have one snack and wait for dinner in peace, and she looks better than she did at her lowest, even carrying a little more. And she’d ask anyone chasing a number, “Would you rather be happy with the scale or with how you feel?”

    Want to work with a care team that looks beyond the scale? That’s us.

    → https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

    26 min
  2. 008. Karen Willock: Thirty-Three Diets Later

    Show notes

    What Karen actually wanted was the ability to ride a bike and the freedom to sit in any chair in the room… which sounds small until you’ve gone through decades of restrictive dieting and believing you simply weren’t trying hard enough.

    Now in her 70s, Karen has a message for everyone her age who has given up on themselves, felt invisible, or decided they’re no longer worth the trouble: Don’t abandon yourself just because you’re getting older or wrinkled.

    We’re here to help you choose yourself:

    → https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

    26 min
  3. 007. Roseanne Chee: The Shame She Believed For 50 Years

    Show notes

    One day at school, a boy in the lunchroom pointed at Roseanne’s container of tuna fish and announced she was on a diet. For the next fifty-plus years, she treated those taunts as proof that something was wrong with her.

    Now in her 60s, she believes for the first time that nothing ever was, and she shows up to every Vineyard support session she can fit on her calendar. Less for herself, more to be there for whoever walks in carrying the same shame that she did.

    Wherever your story began, the next chapter hasn’t been written yet.

    We can help you write the one you want.

    → http://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

    38 min
  4. 006. Bridget: “Something Switched… And I Can’t Explain It”

    Show notes

    Bridget can't point to a trigger. No injury, no pregnancy, no diagnosis. Just, in her words, something that switched in her body in her late twenties and began a twenty-plus year journey of losing and regaining the same 40 pounds.

    She talks with Dr. Spencer and Summer about the lap band that did nothing, the doctor who told her he wasn't trained for this, and why she now tells people the medication alone was never the whole answer.

    Want support on your own journey? We're ready when you are.

    29 min
  5. 005. Kevin Ruiz: Health Isn’t Handed Out Like Halloween Candy

    Show notes

    Kevin Ruiz spent years earning his sense of worth entirely through what he could do for other people, as a prosecutor working the heaviest child welfare cases in New York and as a father who'd pushed his own needs aside completely.

    Here he talks with Dr. Spencer and Summer about the Easter egg hunt and the t-ball game that cracked that belief, the many ups and downs of his journey, and the moment he realized health isn't something you have to earn.

    Want support on your own journey? We’re ready when you are.

    http://joinvineyard.com/join/

    41 min
  6. 004. Jamie Selzler: “I Don’t Want To Go To Your Funeral”

    Show notes

    Jamie Selzler can pinpoint the exact moment his weight started to climb: after two weeks at his grandparents' with an unlimited soda fridge at age nine. Decades later, weighing over 600 pounds, he sat next to an endocrinologist on a flight home who handed him her card and told him to call. He never did. Not until a friend told him “I want you to go to my funeral, I don’t want to go to [yours]” did Jamie finally get help.

    Changing habits you’ve held for your whole life is hard. Losing weight is hard.

    We help make both easier: http://joinvineyard.com/join/

    45 min
  7. 003 Lou Lionetti: “I Never Knew What ‘Full’ Meant”

    Show notes

    Lou Lionetti spent decades not knowing what hunger or fullness actually felt like, eating his feelings, and indulging in “food is love” at every family table until type 2 diabetes and a decade of rising labs caught up with him. In the third episode of Weighty Conversations, Lou shares what finally quieted the noise, and how “consistent, not compulsive” became his mantra for success.

    Consistent, not compulsive. That’s the Vineyard way.
    Get started here: → http://joinvineyard.com/join/

    36 min
  8. 002 Caitlin Kelly: Athletes Also Struggle with Weight

    Show notes

    Caitlin Kelly played competitive softball for eighteen years and was overweight the whole time, cycling through Weight Watchers from age twelve into every season of adulthood that followed. In the second episode of Weighty Conversations, Caitlyn reveals the moment her food noise finally went quiet, and what she's learned about persistence now that her goal is no longer a number on a scale.

    Weight loss doesn’t have to be a miserable experience. We can show you how.

    → http://joinvineyard.com/join/

    36 min
  9. 001 Summer Kessel: What Decades of Dieting Couldn't Fix, But A GLP-1 Could

    Show notes

    Summer Kessel spent decades as a dietitian who couldn't out-diet her own appetite. She tracked her calories and exercised, but hit a wall at 200 pounds no matter what, and was left quietly wondering what was wrong with her. In the first episode of Weighty Conversations, Summer shares the moment she learned that food noise is biology, not a character flaw, and what life is like now that she trusts hunger again.

    Ready to quiet your own food noise? Begin your journey here:

    → http://joinvineyard.com/join/
    Tap here to follow Summer
    Tap here to follow Spencer
    Tap here to follow Vineyard

    32 min