TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

222: The Peloton Tread is BACK! plus our interview with Jennifer Barker

Last Updated: May 2, 2023By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

The Peloton Tread is back!

A Peloton delivery van gets carjacked.

Rower stories were everywhere last week. (yawn)

Karina Kogan was featured in Ad Week.

John Mills joins us to discuss the earnings call.

Dr. Jenn – When your 117-week Peloton streak is in jeopardy.

Robin Arzon talks about her new children’s book.

Tunde headlines the Impact Leadership Conference.

Real Simple has hamstring exercises with help from Matty Maggiacomo.

Alex Toussaint visits Greece.

Cody Rigsby partners with Capital One.

Freelance writer Alan Ilagan makes Cody is “Dazzler of the Day.”

Ally Love has been taking advantage of Facebook’s Audio Rooms.

Sonos introduces its Wild Tracks campaign and features Emma Lovewell.

Angelo lets us know if any of the nutrition bars are actually good for you.

David Goggins loves his Peloton.

The latest artist series features Eric Church.

Hannah Corbin has six new foam-rolling classes.

Anna Greenberg’s yoga series is back – Cultivate Courage.

Birthdays – Kristin McGee (8/31)

All this plus our interview with Jennifer Barker!

—

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

The Peloton Tread is BACK! plus our interview with Jennifer Barker

We should probably remind people before we get too deep into things that we’re going to do a special Zoom thing. 

It’s going to be fun.

If people want to come and hang out videophonically.

It’s Saturday at 6:00 Central, 7:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Mountain, 4:00 PM Pacific. I still need to put that link in the group. Be on the lookout for that. I’ll try to post it on all the socials.

Hopefully, it will be up by the time they read this because there’s a bit of a lag time. Come hang out. We’re going to do that on Saturday. Those are always fun.

It has been a while. I’m looking forward to it.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

We’re going to talk about Peloton getting carjacked. You never know what’s going to happen. Dr. Jenn is coming to visit. She’s going to tell you what to do if you have a 117-week streak and suddenly have to move to a place that doesn’t have Peloton like to another country. We’re going to talk about how there are instructors in other countries and what’s that about. We also have a visit from Angelo. He is going to tell us about nutrition bars and if they’re good for you.

You see so many and you’re like, “Is that nutritional?”

We also have John Mills joining us to discuss the earnings call. There are lots to discuss.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Also, if you could leave us a review, that’s always helpful. We have a new review. This is from Beatrice Loves TV. She says, “I’ve been listening to The Clip Out with Crystal and Tom for about a year now. I can’t wait to listen to it every Friday morning. Equal parts fun and informative, this podcast is my source for anything Peloton related, especially for anything that I missed during the week. They recently celebrated 200 episodes and I look forward to listening for many more to come.” Thank you.

Thank you. How nice.

We also have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. The group is where you will get your link for the Zoom call if you want to hang out, interact and talk to other listeners. It’s always a good time. That’s where you’ll find all that sort of stuff. You can also watch these episodes on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Every week, we throw a lot of links, pictures and stories at you. If you don’t want to scroll through the page of the group looking for those things, you can get them in one weekly digest email directly to you if you sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. There’s all that, let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

The Tread is back, not the Tread+, but the Tread will soon be on sale again.

August 30th, it’s going to be in America, Canada and the UK. It’s going to be on sale for the first time in Germany. The things we don’t know, will it be on sale in Alaska and Hawaii? It had never made it to Alaska or Hawaii before. We’re still waiting to find that. I just want to clarify. There’s been so much confusion. I’ve seen a ton of press coverage about this and it’s getting all confusing.

We watched CNN and they had three facts wrong in a 30-second segment.

I wanted to call Jake Tapper and be like, “What are you doing? Let me do it.” Most of our audience already know this, but if you see it out there, try to correct it because I’m seeing it everywhere. There’s so much misinformation. The facts are that the fix that has been identified and approved by the CPSC is only for the Tread. That is the smaller tread. That is the one with the smaller screen. It does not have slots. It has a belt and it is the one that is new to the market.

They came out second. The Tread+ came out first, but they didn’t brand it as Tread+ until the smaller one came out.

The regular tread or the Tread-minus if you will, does not have an issue with things being sucked underneath it, which is what the Tread+ got pulled back for. The safety issues that it was recalled for were completely different from the safety issues on the Tread. The safety issue on the Tread was about the monitor that had fallen off during some people’s running. No one that we know of has been hurt by that particular incident. However, the Tread will have now the four-digit code on it. It did not before. That same fix that they applied from a software standpoint to the Tread+ will also be applied to the Tread.

There you go. You can share that with people that are telling other people incorrect things. There are a lot of it out there. Hopefully, that means that the Tread+ maybe isn’t far behind, fingers crossed.

We’ll see. It’s also available in the showrooms now, so you can go see it.

There was a Peloton vanjacking.

The thing is it’s unclear if the Peloton car was carjacked or not. There was an armed carjacking and the suspect left in a black van with Peloton on the side. What I’m not clear about is if the Peloton van was actually carjacked. We don’t know. We know the suspect left in that van, but we don’t know if there was another vehicle that was involved. I just want to clarify that.

We’re recording this on Wednesday. The earliest this will be published is Friday. There will be an update between when we recorded it and when you read it. Don’t scream at your device thinking we don’t know what we’re talking about. Especially after we made fun of CNN for getting things wrong. This is all the information we have at the time of recording.

I want to point out a couple of little details that we do know. No injuries were reported. At this time, we believe that no one was hurt. The other thing that we know is that this happened in Fairfax, Virginia. My understanding is somebody who lives there pointed out that there is a whole fleet of Peloton vehicles parked right near here. Their theory is something else happened and then they grabbed a van.

They didn’t target a Peloton van to steal a bunch of Peloton.

It’s all theory. We don’t know that. Other people have jumped to the conclusion that it must mean that they were trying to get bikes and treadmills and such. We don’t know the answers yet. We will be on the lookout.

That would be pointless if you bought a stolen Peloton from this person.

It’s going to have all the information and will show that it’s stolen. How is that going to do you any good?

Peloton will disable it. They’d be like, “No, you bought a solo one.” It’s a bad plan. You could steal an Echelon, but good luck selling those. They would abandon the van on the side of the street. They’re like, “Nevermind. I’m embarrassed now.”

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It’s Echelon’s fault for making them look so much the same.

There were lots of stories about the code and the background on Peloton and how there’s going to be a rower. Every ten minutes, there was another article and it’s like, “We’ve known this for a year and a half.”

We’ve known about the code for a year and a half. We’ve known the rower is coming for four years. My theory is somebody at Peloton was like, “We should leak this ahead of the earnings call.” This was in news articles a year and a half ago. This is not new information. I don’t get it other than that. It went through an official channel of being “leaked.” Can you leak something officially? As opposed to us talking about it because we talked about it. It’s out there. It’s searchable and findable. I got to believe that’s what happened, that this was leaked.

It would not surprise me. It’s like, “Journalists, if you want to know anything, just give us a call.”

It looked like new information. This is another thing that you can let people know when you see it out there in the groups like correct them. This information has been out there forever. We know that it’s coming. We know that this is going to be announced in the first half of 2022. These are things we know. Correct, people. Let’s get everybody on the same page. Sorry, I don’t mean to put everybody to work.

Lots of assignments. It’s like being married to her. Ad Week had a nice writeup about Karina Kogan and how she may be the reason that you purchased a Peloton bike in 2021.

No, it’s not. That’s cute though. I’ve had mine forever. I’m not a recent convert.

A lot of people are coming onboard.

I know. I just couldn’t help it. That was my immediate reaction. Karina Kogan is the Senior VP of Global Marketing. Karina reports to Dara. This is the first time we’ve seen any focus on the global. It’s interesting because one of our listeners keeps saying, “Global, global, global.” The industry is not paying attention. Global growth is where it’s at. I think he’s right. We’ll get into this when we talked to John about the earnings call and about analysts in general, but they do not seem to be paying attention to the global growth that Peloton is doing

The point being, when you go over here and you look at what Karina is doing, there are all these companies. It’s interesting that Ad Week chooses now to focus on all these countries that Peloton is growing into. This article is not about any of that. This article is about Karina and her career and how it has changed over time. There’s some good advice in there. I say that especially for women in the workforce. There are some good things in here about people who were mentors to her and shaped her career, her parents. Also, some things and tips that she has about time management which might be easier at Peloton than it is at other corporations. There are some good little details in here about her life. I thought it was a good article.

—

Joining us to dig into the earnings call and there’s a lot on this one to dig into, it’s John Mills from Run, Lift and Live. How’s it going, John?

I went on.

This has been a wild ride. Am I right?

Yes. All kinds of stuff.

Let me do a quick rundown of the timeline that occurred from about 3:00 on the earnings report. PDF went out and the stock market dropped from 116 to 114. Actually, that was close and then it dropped even more. It went down to as low as I saw, it was $98 per share, but then Peloton was ready. They knew this was going to be a thing. They then announced, “We’re going to do a big price drop on the original bike, $400 per bike is yours. If you purchase it in the last 30 days, we’re automatically issuing a refund.” The price went right back up. Between where that occurred and now at the end of the call, we’re back at 114.

Pulling the strings, manipulate stuff, move around, and it’s all good.

That’s how they do it. What are your thoughts on this price drop?

It seems like it’s yearly now. The original price drop was in September of 2020.

I guess it was in July because they released the new Bike+ in July of 2020.

Early September 2020, we were guessing in my group what it was going to be. That’s why I’m assuming it was somewhere around that time. It’s interesting back then, we were trying to compare what can they withstand from a margin perspective. Based on that, what would they drop the price to? A lot of us back then, our guesses were around that $1,400 to $1,600 range.

I remember my thought was $1,500 seems to be the number for that. You want a bigger discrepancy because if it’s too close to the Bike+, you go, “I’ll just get the Bike+. You’re losing all the people that are barely able to sneak into the market may be from a budget standpoint.

We were debating between based on their margins, how much can they afford to bring it down. Based on that, how much are they willing to bring it down? That’s what we were using at the time. We were way off. They came in with $1,895 and we’re like, “I guess we missed it. The way the space works now and the way it looks now, you got iFit. Their high-end comparable bike is $1,599. You got Beachbody coming out and their comparable bike at MYX was $1,599 at some point, they changed it now at $1,399. Now you got Peloton. I know there are other players, but those are the only ones I consider. You then put Peloton, they’re right in the middle of this now. They’re at $1,495. That seems to be the common price point for these players. To me, it makes all the sense in the world. If you’re listening to what was said on the call, when the question was asked, “Is this offensive or is this defensive?” That was the question I had too. That came right out of the shoot too.

I love John Foley’s answer, “Offensive.” I love how William Lynch was like, “I want to underscore, offensive.”

I could feel the clap out, “This is offensive.”

I can tell he was holding himself back. I could tell that was the intent because he was like, “I want to underscore that this is offensive.”

Do you believe that?

I do believe that.

My immediate thought was because there are some unexpected things for me in this. The numbers to me were impressive, from a revenue perspective, from a connected fitness subscriber perspective. Those things are higher than they had said. The other thing is it’s hard to anticipate. The market was making some assumptions around they’re going to lose $0.45 a share.

Why did they make that assumption? Peloton numbers aren’t like that. They just made that up.

I don’t know how they go about their process but the price drop was an unknown. I’m sure that there were other things in there. I know they talked a little bit about some of the impacts to the margins being one. Now at 11% when historically, it’s around 43%. My initial thought was, “Is this reactionary and it’s defensive?” Now there are real players, but as you listen to it and you look at the numbers, and also in considering what the numbers look like in what they reported, it feels more offensive.

There are a couple of things too to point that proves that it’s offensive. They said that they fully expect to be back to having a positive net income at the end of fiscal 2023. They’re like, “We know we’re going to lose money in 2022. We never expected or planned or tried to make money in 2021. That was a happy accident.” When I say happy, I’m not referring to the pandemic.

It happened and no one expected that. Now they’re like, “We’re going to lay this out sequentially. We expect to be making money again in 2023, right back on where we thought we were going to be.” That’s with all of the huge expenses that they’ve had with adding in all this extra money. Putting money back in for marketing, buying land, real estate, the pop, the recall, all this stuff. That was a surprise that more treads had been sent back than expected. I was like, “Really?” They never said the number and nobody asked that question. What the hell?

I had to put the red check on my predictions on that one? That one hurt me.

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

It does surprise me. Many people are fervent about it. Are we talking Tread or Tread+? I want to know if we’re talking Tread or Tread+ because I think that number might have been skewed more heavily for the Tread, not the Tread+. The reason I say that is because it was about that monitor falling off. That’s a very different thing than what was happening with the Tread+ and people have had it longer.

The pandemic has hurt people financially. I wonder if there were some people that used it as an opportunity to get out of a payment.

There are probably like a billion different reasons why. It’s not just one thing, but that’s a good point, Tom.

I know it’s a very different situation but with the pandemic, we had a lot of shows where I worked move dates. Once the show moves a date, you can get a refund for any reason. It’s not like we have a way to know why. There were lots of people that I know who were refunding their tickets. It has not anything to do with the date moving.

A lot of people said that about their treads. They were like, “I’m going to go ahead and send it back because I wasn’t sure that I wanted it anyway. Now that I’ve got this opportunity, I’m sending it back.”

You can always rebuy it.

I get that the market freak out a little bit though because of that element of it. The analyst making a prediction around earnings per share, which didn’t pan out to be. You look at R&D, which to me, it makes sense that R&D would be much higher now with all these new products they’re about. R&D is much higher than it has been in the past at around 11%. It’s normally around 5%, with marketing being much higher than it has in the past. If you put all those things into a pot, it lends to the case that someone may try to write about, “They’re spending a lot of money now because they got to buy people in now. They got to spend more to get people to come in. This isn’t the same appeal as it was before. They’re losing appeal.” You could sell that case now. I get the movement.

You could write that article but I don’t think it’s accurate. I think the lower price is going to draw even more people in. Peloton is aspirational and this is a way to bring people in that couldn’t afford the bike when it first came out.

They’re going nuts over on the Peloton digital page. They’re like, “It’s my number. I’m in.”

Think about the pressure. You’re right with everybody now.

We’re watching all the people that already have a bike bitching about it.

That has already begun. I was like, “Really?” I bought a phone and they brought a new one out, and mine got lowered. I wasn’t like, “Now give me my money back.”

Nobody refunded you on your iPhone 6, dial it down.

I don’t understand that. The people who bought it 31 days ago, yes, absolutely.

You got to draw that line somewhere. My guess is if you call and make a stink, they’ll probably let you, but they’re not going to image it that great. Do you know who should really be mad? It’s those people that bought a used bike for $1,600.

That’s what I was thinking. They cut the bottom out of the used market. There is no point in buying a used bike anymore. If you haven’t sold it and you were planning on selling it, congratulations, you now own two bikes. I wonder if this will encourage people to do the buyback program that had been holding off. I don’t know because they didn’t change the price of the Bike+.

If they didn’t already do it, I wonder if they’ll lower the buyback price.

So far nothing has changed on that. I hope it doesn’t, but this is perfect timing. They did that on purpose. It’s right in time for the holiday season. They are like, “We’re prepared. We have all of our ducks in a row. We have supplies ready to go. We have components. We’ve been talking to our suppliers. We are good.”

As long as they can stop those vans full of Pelotons from getting carjack.

Quick update on that. They did not find the person but everyone is safe. It was a female driver who was carjacked at gunpoint. She’s fine. They took the van and no one has reported what was in the van and they have not found the van. We will continue to give updates. Thank goodness that the driver was okay.

That’s scary stuff. It is crazy.

Back to the price drop, I wonder if you could maybe even see this as the Bike+ is so successful, they can almost use that to subsidize the cost of the regular bike more than they originally thought. That’s what could drive this price drop. People on the higher end, on the more expensive, they’re willing to pay the money for the fancier bike. That enables us to lower this price even more to get more bikes into the hands of people that are having difficulty reaching that price point.

Maybe, but they were clear that, “We got to lower our guidance for Q1 2022. We’re taking that.” From that perspective, I don’t know if that’s the case. It’s almost as if they’re saying, that’s something we’re going to eat because we know what’s going to build more people to come into our subscription base. I’m not sure if that’s it or not but I hear you.

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I hear you too. They made it sound like the cost of making the original bike had dropped so much. That’s how they were able to do it, but that was the first time. That’s because they now have all these things in place for being able to have these massive amounts of production. It finally got to that economy of scale that they could drop it. That’s what they claimed. It doesn’t mean that you’re not right, but that’s what they said. The other thing I thought was interesting is how they talked about these digital subscribers through the employee programs. They were very reluctant to talk about hard numbers, but they were also clearly very happy with the early results. It’s way above what they expected. It’s phenomenal is what I was hearing.

It’s not very often that an HR department gets to announce something cool and trendy. This is a pretty trendy thing of like, “We’re throwing a Peloton subscription at you.” That’s probably the coolest thing your HR department has ever done. Normally it’s like, “There’s ice cream in the break room.” They probably need the Peloton subscription because of all the ice cream they’ve been giving.

Ultimately, I went in going, “Oh, snap.” By the end of the whole thing, I’m like, “That tends to happen in every earnings call. This is going to work out.” What’s interesting to me though is there’s a graphic in the report that shows categories and the number of classes taken in their growth year over year. Running is one of the only categories that decreased.

I keep saying that to people. Nobody’s taking these classes. People are like, “I want more of this. I want more of that.” I’m like, “You got to get on the damn treadmill.”

It’s going to decrease if a bunch of people sent their tread back.

That’s true, Tom. They also have so many bootcamps and walks. Bootcamps should be included in the runs but the walks aren’t. Walk plus run isn’t included and all that other stuff isn’t included. That does not shock me. I see less and less people.

Strength is the highest growing category. I had noticed over the last year or so that bootcamps are all over the place, but running classes had started to decrease. At least that’s what it felt like.

It is definitely the case.

When I saw that metric, my initial thought was, “Does that have anything to do with the tread recalls?” I then started to think that this is what they were seeing by whatever polling or analytics they were doing.

It’s like there’s been that decrease of 45-minute classes. Our OGs are like, “We want more 45 minutes,” and that will never change. They’re always going to feel that way. I get it but the metrics show most people want the twenty minutes. They’re going to keep doing more of those. The pandemic has had an effect on all of this but regardless, I have seen a decrease in that. Maybe when they get the smaller tread out there, we will see an increase. There are always rumors about instructors that are coming on board. I know we’re going to have many instructors start in 2022. I know that but I’m getting the vibe that we’re very close to having instructors introduced to us for the UK for the Tread. That’s going to make sense with the Tread dropping. We’re probably going to have Germany not long after that. My hope is we’re going to start seeing more running classes.

I hope so too. You know me, I got all of these joint issues, so I tend to like the shorter running classes as well. There wasn’t as many out there and definitely not as many lives recently. I was wondering whether or not this was going to be a thing where the new Tread comes out, but we still see a lot of bootcamps because that’s what people want or will we start seeing more running classes? We’ll see.

One thing that stood out to me was one of the analysts asked John, “Can you tell us what these new product lines are that you touched on? When they’re happening? What it’s going to be?” John was like, “I want to tell you many things but I can’t. I’m really excited about all these things in our R&D. I will say that as Jill pointed out earlier, we have a few skews. We don’t have a ton of them and we’re not going to,” so that’s clue number one. He also said, “Some of these we’ve been working on for years.” Hello, rower.

I’ll be glad when they release the rower so we can start talking about it.

I like making fun of Danielle about me making bad guesses of when the rower is going to come out. Once it comes out, there’s no more fun in there.

The rower is the avatar two of Peloton.

It’s true. We’ve been talking about this rower for three and a half or four years at this point. That’s interesting.

There’s not going to be an elliptical.

There’ll be no elliptical unless it’s under Precor but that’s a whole another story. Nothing came up about Precor either other than, “We bought them in. We’re integrating and it’s going to cost a bunch of money.” That was it. Nothing about strategy. That was one thing. Tom, you said something else.

Towards the end of the call, I forget how it came up but Foley was like, “I don’t know if I should say this but we have lots of leads on the Tread.” A lot of people have gone to the website and entered their data to say, “Let me know when this comes out,” but I figured at least half of those are journalists.

The people who send their treads back, we didn’t expect that.

That’s so true, John. I’ve seen a lot of that, “I sent my tread back and I shouldn’t have,” which I would be running to, just to be clear. That’s a good point. He said it in that perfect John tone, “I shouldn’t say this.” I could hear the grin on his face, that “I shouldn’t” grin. If Jayvee had been there, she would have been like, “No.”

That’s what I was thinking. When he said, “I don’t know if I should say this,” I thought, “Are there people in the room going, “Don’t do it, John. Don’t do it.”

Normally, when someone at that level says that, I’m like, “That’s PR bluster.” We’ve watched him do that. When we did that Q&A, Jayvee was like, “Do not say this thing.” We’re like, “Welcome to the stage, John Foley.” He’s like, “Here’s the thing.”

It’s like when somebody’s like, “Do not think about basketball,” and then all you can think about is basketball. As soon as she said, “Don’t do this,” he immediately did it. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

There’s your earnings call recap. Lots of interesting stuff going on. Until next time, John, where can people find you?

They can find me on Facebook, in my Run, Lift & Live group or page. They can find me on Instagram @RunLiftAndLive or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

Thank you.

—

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—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn. She also has a long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. Ladies and gentlemen, and all points in between, it’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

It’s good to have you back. We have more questions for you from the community. I’m going to put you on the spot for this one. I didn’t give you any kind of prep for this. This one was emailed to me, which I always find interesting when people take the time to email me. This is from Marie. She says she’s been completely obsessed with her Peloton for the past few years, going strong on her 117-week streak, and has not missed a single blue dot day. She found out that they’re going to be relocating to Switzerland for eighteen months in a few months. She had never been a regular exercise person before Peloton, but that’s changed everything. She’s excited about the opportunity but she has to leave the bike behind and it’s creating anxiety.

This is terrible. I’m at a loss.

She’s got lots of anxiety. I don’t think this is helping Dr. Jenn.

I’m going to get it together. I was feeling it for her, but I’m clear-headed again. I lost it for a moment. I went to an empathy spiral. Fo her advice, she can still continue to get her blue dot. A few things. First of all, this is going to sound super obsessive and some may say, “You’re a therapist. You shouldn’t play into this obsessiveness,” but I am as obsessed as she is. I’m going to say to make sure when you are traveling to Switzerland, you get a plane with wifi so you can do your meditation and get your blue dots. We don’t want you to get off your blue dot and have it throw you off when you get to Switzerland. You can also do your chair in yoga that is available on the app.

We want to make sure that she doesn’t lose her blue dot and also it’s good for her circulation on the plane to be able to keep herself moving, avoid blood clots, all that sort of stuff. She’s going to have to recreate her regimen. Instead of being bike heavy or tread heavy, it’s going to need to be more about the strength training, the outdoor walks and runs, the yoga classes, the stretch classes, the dance classes and the Pilates. She’s going to have to get creative. Did she say how long she’s going to Switzerland for?

She did. It’s eighteen months.

What she should do is divide that eighteen months into maybe 3 or 4 different regiments so that she can mix it up. Month 1 through maybe 3 or 4, she can do a trial and puts together a fun plan for herself that also accommodates for weather, depending on what the weather will be when she arrives, and allows for walks, runs and that sort of stuff.

On a regular basis, recreate it. She’s going to have to be creative on this. It’s very doable. She can continue to get her blue dot and she also can use a stationary bike or stationary trek and use her app. All is not lost but she should be able to continue on her blue dot streak. Just being creative and looking at it as an opportunity to change things up, and then when she gets back, she’ll be so excited to be reunited with her Peloton equipment. It will end up making her feel a whole new enthusiasm for her fitness regimen when she gets back.

That’s awesome. I like the breaking it down into 3 or 4 things because then it gives her something to look forward to, instead of just something she’s dealing with. It’s like, “This trauma, I will survive this.” It takes it and flips it on its head. I like that.

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

Doing it in eighteen months, she’ll burn out.

Does not the bike work in Switzerland? Couldn’t she sneak one in?

How are you going to get it there?

You can get Peloton in Germany and Switzerland is right next door to Germany.

She’s got to buy the whole new bike. I think this is about expenses because she’s got to leave it behind. I’m reading into this that it’s not an option to buy another bike or ship it there. That’s my assumption because she does not say.

My first thought was like, “Ship it.” This is what trailers and boats are for, shipping it out, getting a converter and making it work. If it’s not an option, by all means, try what I said.

I’ve never shipped something of that size. Maybe it’s not cost-effective, but then I go back to you can buy one in Germany and sneak it across the border.

Something that’s not cost-effective at the moment can end up being cost-effective in the long run. If you don’t have something that helps your mental and physical health, you’ll end up paying for it in therapy and doctor’s bills. Your lack of productivity because you’re not feeling yourself and you’re not doing well in your mental state. If you’re moving to another country, I’m assuming this isn’t, “I’m moving back to where I’m from.” If it’s going to be unfamiliar to you, you’re going to want the things that are familiar to you that can help give you a foundation and root you. If there is any way to get her the bike there, I would definitely recommend it.

If you think about it, eighteen months is an extended period of time. If you bought it, used it for eighteen months, sold it and recouped half of what you spend on it, that’s probably worth the money.

Definitely, I just don’t know if it’s feasible. I don’t know her situation.

It might be blocked when you connect to wifi. I don’t know how it works.

I don’t think so because we’ve had other people like remember Hong Kong Hustler. They did that long before.

They won’t ship it there.

We have lots of suggestions but she is set.

Thank you so much for all of that. It was tailor-made for you. It’s like that question was created in a lab. It married your two specialties, your professional life and your personal passion. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can always find me on social media. I post all of my Peloton workouts on my Insta Stories, @DrJennMann.

—

Robin Arzon took to YouTube and talk about her new children’s book Strong Mama.

She wanted to talk about it. I know we’ve already talked about her book is coming out, but for some reason, I just got served like the information about the YouTube video. If you stopped to look at this, it was posted back on June 7th, 2021. I’m not sure why this came up as news today.

You can’t always trust the YouTube views. It shows only 119 views. I’m wondering if this was recorded a little while back and that’s when they uploaded it to YouTube, but they didn’t flip it to live. It’s still branded with the date it was uploaded, but it didn’t get serviced or made available for viewing until now.

That would make sense. If you haven’t heard Robin talk about this, this is a great opportunity to hear how she came up with the idea when she wrote the book, what was going through her head and all the background information. The best part is it’s a short video. You don’t have to put aside a whole bunch of time to watch the video. It’s only a couple of minutes long. It’s good information about the genesis of the book.

BizJournal writes about the upcoming Impact Leadership Conference, which is important for our purposes because it’s being headlined by Tunde.

It says that she is the featured attraction at the Greensboro Chambers’ Impact Leadership Conference. It’s going to be on October 27th, 2021 at the Carolina Theater. Right now they plan to hold it in person, but they’re also going to have a virtual option. If that’s something you want to check out, you can go get a ticket and join.

RealSimple.com writes about five simple hamstring exercises and they got a little help from Matty Maggiacomo.

Matty went through and explained why stretching your hamstrings is so important and the way that the muscle is put together. It doesn’t say if he gave the specific exercises but he did talk about the importance of working your quads, your hamstrings and your glutes equally so that you don’t have muscle imbalances. Apparently, it’s pretty typical for people to have imbalances. It says it’s more prominent in women than men, which I find interesting. That means your quad is dominant a lot of times. That’s usually where the muscle imbalance ends up being. That can cause knee pain and strain. You want to make sure you got 360 on all of the muscles in your legs, especially with all the running and the biking that we do in the Peloton community. It’s super important.

This is exciting. Alex Toussaint is in Greece.

He is specifically in Santorini. It looks beautiful there. We need to add that to the old bucket list. The interesting thing about this is at first, I thought it was a vacation, but I have noticed that other instructors have been to other places. Maybe they are on vacation. I don’t want to get everybody all excited about nothing, but I can’t help but wonder when I see locations such as Greece. I see Olivia over in Ireland. I can’t help but wonder if we have some more classes that are coming to us like scenic rides and runs. I can’t help but wonder if that’s what’s going on.

That’s a conspiracy theory that unites rather than divides. We need more of those.

We sure do. Either way, have fun in Greece, Alex.

Cody Rigsby has partnered with Capital One.

I was browsing through the old Instagram and this cracked me up because he was talking about the Capital One lounges that are going to be opening up in airports. He was also talking about how it’s going to be great for all the travel this summer. I was like, “Is this still summer when it’s the end of August?” I guess we have a couple of weeks left.

If you go by the actual moon phases, I guess he had a little time. From an actual cultural standpoint, we’re pretty close to the end here.

This is like when Peloton told me that my Tread was coming in the fall and I got it in December.

You got it the day before the winter solstice.

It’s just another example of how these partnerships are racking up for the instructor.

While we’re speaking of Cody, he was declared the Dazzler of the Day on Alan Ilagan’s website. He’s a freelance writer and he’s done a lot of interesting work. He wrote the bio/press release for Margaret Cho. He wrote the main body of text for one of Madonna’s tour programs. He works at a pretty high level and he’s a fan of Cody.

He had already been named king of a Peloton by this website by Alan. Now, he is also Dazzler of the Day. That’s literally the only point to this page. That’s it. It’s all Cody in various stages of undress. Enjoy indeed.

Clubhouse was very hot for a little while. People are still doing it, but then the other social media platforms have launched their own. Facebook’s is called Audio Room, which they put a lot of thought into that. It’s like, “Talk over here. These are the things that were rejected. Facebook talks any talk,” which honestly, that’s off the top of my head and it’s better than the Audio Room.

There is life outside of Peloton. As we get busier, celebrate the wins, talk about the struggles, and help people be the best they can be. Share on X

It’s not a great name, I will grant you that.

Maybe their thought process is you know exactly what it is. You’re not going to be confused, and then if it gets popular, they’ll rebrand it with something catchy.

There’s something to be said about keeping it simple.

That is true but Ally Love has been using the hell out of it lately.

It’s like daily. It’s interesting. Maybe she has some kind of partnership with Facebook because no one else is using it. I don’t mean like it’s bad or anything like that. I’m not talking it down. I just literally see that no one else is using it.

This might be a way to help it hit critical mass as they go around to certain people that already have followings.

We know how huge Ally Love is. There are 37 people going and 21 interested. That seems low to me.

We’re not throwing shade at her. We’re throwing shad to Audio Room.

This is just getting off the floor. It’s not even throwing shade. It speaks to how new it is when somebody like Ally Love only has 37 people going.

If you want your chance to interact with Ally Love, here’s your time to shine because there’s not a lot of people vying for attention yet over there.

That was the whole reason I brought it up. I thought it might be something interesting for people to know about that they didn’t already know and they wouldn’t have known to find her there. She’s talking about weddings but every day, it’s been something else. Hop on there and look for her. It’s under Ally Love Peloton. I’m sure you will find some good topics to follow.

Sonos is working on a new campaign called Wild Tracks, which is like they’re narrating.

It’s a series of Spotify playlists, but it’s all set to be this fun, outdoor adventure companion. The idea being that people want to travel in 2021, they’re taking advantage of it. They also have this new outdoor speaker called Roam. The thought process is you can take your outdoor speaker with you and you can listen to this fun playlist while you’re exploring the outdoors. They have them set for all these different areas. The whole reason we’re bringing this up to you is that Emma Lovewell was chosen to do one of them. You might remember, we talked a few weeks ago that she is also partnering with Sonos. She was chosen to create a playlist for the Glacier National Park. You can find the Spotify playlist. It will be in our newsletter when Tom sends it out because he will.

That’s a lot of pressure. I’ve been on a roll.

It was more like positive thinking, Tom. I went through and I was checking out who was on this playlist. There are bands you will have heard of. There’s Weezer, Elton John, Rufus du Sol and M83. There’s also quite a bit that I’ve never heard of. I know that I am not young anymore. These might be indie bands or bands that are big that I haven’t heard of yet.

It only gets worse. The older you get.

There’s stuff on here like Poolside, Local Natives, Future Islands.

These sound like band names that are made up for a TV show.

I don’t know if this is on purpose, but they’re all natury and outdoorsy. Some of them aren’t like I forgot to mention Arcade Fire. I know who they are and they’re on there, but fire is an element.

They will melt the glacier. Come on, Emma, what are you doing?

I don’t think that’s what she was trying to do here. This was a cool idea though that Sonos was doing. I like seeing the different ways that these vendors find to partner with the instructors.

It’s nice to see them do something creative.

—

Joining us from MetPro is Angelo. How’s it going?

It’s good to see you both.

It’s good to see you. We have a question for you from The Clip Out community. This one comes from Deborah Anzalone. She says that she is always looking for healthy and nutritious bars to have on the go and she needs some recommendations.

When we’re working with our clients, we’ll have some specific recommendations when it comes to bars. I will give an example. It will be the only bar I will mention. The RX bar was popular for a while. A lot of people still use them. Rather than say good or bad, I’m going to tell you the characters, qualities and attributes of the particular bar that I like because then that can spill over into any other bar that you may be looking at. If I say a brand now, you’re going to read this a few months from now, the formulations are all going to be different. The brands are all going to be changed.

What you want is to look for bars that you can pronounce the ingredients on. That’s the 101. Do you recognize the foods that make this bar? If you know the ingredients and it’s just a handful of ingredients that you can recognize and read, that’s probably a decent bar. If there’s a paragraph of additives, chemicals, etc., it’s probably not what you’re looking for. Now, I’m going to answer the question that she’s probably asking because this is what I get asked all the time, “Are bars good for me on the go if I’m trying to lose weight or if I’m trying to build muscle or if I’m trying to get to XYZ goal?” I’m going to break everyone’s heart and tell you if one of your goals is weight loss, I prefer whole food snacks. I’m going to say to get in the habit of bringing with you some fruit, nuts, rice cake, almond butter, peanut butter and things like that.

Once you create that habit, it’s not much more difficult than carrying the bars because most people are looking for quick and portable. The reason is that they haven’t perfected the magic ingredients where they can make a bar filling and low calorie. You’re going to be so much better with the fruits as far as let’s say a tea. Usually, if they are somewhat filling, they’re not going to be low calorie. That doesn’t mean they’re going to be high, but it’s not going to be my first go-to now. Can they work? Have they worked and have people lost weight using them? Yes, absolutely. As a best practice, I’m usually thinking of bars when I’m thinking of someone more concerned with getting additional fuel. They’re on the go and were not too worried about the macronutrients or calories. We want healthy and quality ingredients.

Let’s attack it from a different direction. Instead of what should you be looking for in your bar, what shouldn’t you be looking for in a bar? Is there a red flag, short of it saying Reese’s on it? Is there an ingredient or two that’s a major red flag on one of these bars where they might have imaged it as a health bar, but not really?

Sugar, that’s a good one to start with. I had a client once and I told them, now I want you to go look at the back of this bar that they got. They got one of those oatmeal bars like, “This is healthy. This is great.” I said, “Look at the back of that bar and look at the back of the Snickers bar.” The difference was the oatmeal bar had 4 grams less sugar. It’s basically a candy bar and there’s a ton of them out there. When you bite into it, you know. I always say the answer depends. I was on the phone with a client and I said to him, “Mitchell, this is the only time you’re going to hear these words come out of my mouth. Even if you have to grab a Snickers bar, it’s okay.” Can you imagine what might drive me to say that?

He was going to miss an entire meal.

He was going to be on a very long endurance road race. He was concerned with not having anything. The first is not eating anything. That’s the disclaimer there.

The only way I can get you to say I can have a Snickers bar is to go do a long road race.

My theory was like, “Angelo was on the take. Mars paid him off.” Thank you so much for all of that. Until next week, where can people find you?

MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you.

—

You came across an incredibly cool website that you want people to check out.

I do and it’s really good. It’s Nuts.com. I would say that this is the best-kept secret among savvy snackers across the country. I’m going to tell you why you can get any kind of snack from there, not just nuts. You would think that being called Nuts.com that it would be nut intensive, but it’s not. There are so many things like white chocolate, toffee, cashews, bourbon pecans. Those are nuts, but then they also have chocolate-covered coffee and they have candied strawberries like dried strawberries and dried mangoes. There are so many things.

They also have pantry items like baking mixes and pasta, and things like that.

You can fill up your pantry. I enjoy it. The kids have found things they like. You’ve even found things you like. It’s good for everybody in the house.

Chocolate covered pretzels, which I can’t eat at the moment. As soon as I can, they will get devoured.

This is the simple and convenient way to have nutritious, delicious and healthy nuts, dried fruits, flowers, grains and so many other high-quality foods delivered straight to your door.

Over 4,000 products to choose from the delicious and healthy kid and family snacks like dried strawberries and custom trail mix.

Easy to navigate website with great photos of the products.

Nuts.com is your one-stop online pantry shop.

They have gluten-free and vegan options. Delivery is fast, most orders ship the same day. New Nuts.com customers get free shipping on their first order when you text TCO to 64000.

That’s TCO to 64000. Terms apply available at Nuts.com/terms.

—

People were excited to discover that David Goggins has a Peloton.

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

They were very excited. It’s been a while since I’ve had this many people send the same thing over and over again. When that happens, I know people are excited about it. He was talking about sports in general. He talked for a while but the whole time he’s doing it, he’s on his Peloton. That was very cool. People are stoked about this and it’s pretty awesome.

—

The latest artists series features Eric Church. For the people who are always wanting more country music, there you go.

I am excited about this one. I love me some Eric Church. Those classes started on August 23rd and go throughout the week. If you haven’t taken them yet, by the time you’re reading this, all the classes should be out there. Go check them out.

—

You have six new foam-rolling classes to take advantage of.

People are excited about this too. Hannah Corbin has six new classes. People always speak so highly of her foam-rolling classes. If people out there haven’t tried them, I highly suggest that you do. She goes through specifically, how do you get the most bang for your buck time-wise out of using a foam roller. It’s not just rolling back and forth over the foam roller. It’s not that obvious. You have to pause and knead into the muscle. She walks you through all that. I don’t need to do it right now. The point being, it’s awesome. Six brand new classes and they’ve been completely updated.

Also, Anna Greenberg’s yoga series is back.

It’s Cultivate Courage. It’s a whole yoga class that you are just focused on cultivating courage. That’ll be season two, starting on August 31st, 2021. The first class is at 6:00 PM Eastern.

—

Finally, happy birthday to Kristin McGee.

August 31st is going to be a big day for yoga because we’ve got the Cultivate Courage dropping and it’s Kristin McGee’s birthday. If you read this, go and wish her a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Kristin.

—

Joining us is Jennifer Barker. Jennifer, how’s it going?

I’m good. How are you?

We’re so excited you’re here. I am curious to find out how you originally found out about Peloton and decided, “This is the bike I need to take home.”

It’s so weird to think it’s been years since I started my Peloton journey. I feel like one of the old veterans at this point. Before the pandemic even, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I got my bike for Christmas as a gift in 2017. I had seen some commercials. There was a store in our mall and I was excited about the possibility of having it. When I got the envelope on Christmas morning, I was so excited. I was right in the middle of a weight loss journey and knew that this might be the thing I needed to take it to the next step.

I’m curious what your thoughts were on the big commercial when it came out.

It’s the infamous commercial. That was my story. My husband gave me a bike for Christmas. I was so happy to get it. That’s what a lot of people made fun of. “Her husband must have thought she was fat.” That’s not the story. All of us who have struggled with weight or have been on a weight loss journey is just looking for something to help keep us going and get us motivated.

Motivation is something that’s big for me. I had gotten stuck and gained back a little bit of weight. I had a hip injury that I was nursing. I was a former runner and I couldn’t run anymore. The things that were natural to me to keep exercising weren’t available. The bike became the thing that I could do and it changed my life. I’ve lost a total of 90 pounds. I’m so happy to be where I am. I couldn’t have done it without Peloton.

Had you asked for the Peloton or put it out there into the universe?

We’ve had some conversations. I have a robust Christmas list.

That was people’s big hang-up with the commercial. There was no reference in it to that she had requested one.

Those who were super into Peloton assumed that she had and then people who were not pro Peloton assumed that she had because it wasn’t spelled out.

Those who don’t have Pelotons or haven’t been on this journey don’t know what it can be or what it means. There’s so much more than the bike. I have the Tread, but the community is what changed my life. All of the friends and the connections that I’ve made, that’s what kept me getting on the bike day after day, knowing that I was going to meet Claire and Austin was going to ride with me or Tiara in Oregon was counting on me to take that strength class. That’s what Peloton is to me. It’s not just that piece of equipment.

You used to be a runner. Take us through a little bit of your journey at a high level. From a time standpoint, were you an athletic person when you were young or was this something that you had gone in and out of? How did that work?

I was a child athlete. When I was younger, I was a competitive swimmer. I swam until I was about twenty. At one point, I was working towards being a junior Olympian in swimming. I love swimming, but it gets a little more complicated to go to the pool and shower as you get older. In college, I took up running because it was easy to do. You could do it anywhere.

I met a boy and he introduced me to strength training. Strength training is one of my favorite things. I love that Peloton has moved in the direction of having some strength training classes. As with Tom and Crystal, I have a Tonal as well. All of these connected devices are changing the way that fitness can be done but running and strength training became something I did.

As I got into my twenties and when I had my daughter, Ava, I stopped working out or I started checking the box. I would go to the gym and do 30 minutes on the elliptical or take a step class. None of that was doing what I needed to do. It was more of a chore that you were supposed to do. I wasn’t in love with it like I was when I was an athlete.

You can't just sit on the sidelines. You got to jump in and start to be a part of it. Share on X

When I had Ava, I weighed 218 pounds, which is unbelievably weird to think about. I had to lose that weight. I had to somehow get back to where I felt comfortable in my own skin. Nutrition played a key role in that but exercise was big. I started running after I had Ava. I injured my hip and I had hip surgery for a torn labrum. I couldn’t walk.

In 2017 right before I got my Peloton, I had a doctor tell me that if I wanted to continue to exercise in any way, I was going to have to have a hip replacement. I was 39. I wasn’t going to have a hip replacement at 39 and so I said, “That’s not going to be my story.” I tried a cortisone injection and started Pelotoning. Here I am years later, with no hip pain. I’ve lost the rest of the weight. I’m back down under 130. I’m so happy. I don’t see a hip replacement anytime in the near future. I’m thankful to Peloton for saving me that transformative surgery that would have ended my athletic career.

It must have worked because you couldn’t run because of your hip issues and now you have a Tread so I’m assuming you got past that.

I run now. I’m never going to be a marathoner. I am training for my very first Spartan, which I’m very excited about. That came because of some of the communities I’m involved in. I saw others doing these cool things and I thought, “If they can do that, I can do that.” I started walking, jogging and doing a few interval runs. I can probably run six miles if I wanted to but I’m never going to be a long-distance runner again. It’s not in my cards but I do like the option. Cross-training is so good for your body.

Was that nerve-wracking the first time you were like, “I’m going to try running again?”

Yes. I wake up the next morning and I was a little sore. My hip was like, “What are you doing?” I’ve had to learn to rest and not run through pain. If I do that, I will injure myself. That’s an important lesson for everyone out there. There are so many classes and things to do. There’s always somebody who wants you to join them on something. There’s a lot of FOMO in the Peloton world. As we get older, we have to take care of ourselves just a little bit more.

I would like to talk about your group, Miles, Muscles & Motivation because you are always doing group things. You’re adding more for people to do together, which is a wonderful thing.

Why would you do that?

I oftentimes wonder. There was a group that did the Spice Girls run. It wasn’t in my week to do a run and I felt bad not being there with everybody. FOMO is a real thing. We as adults have it probably even worse than kids. I just had to say, “I can’t do this. If I do this, I won’t be able to do the rest of the things I need to get done.”

Saying no is a hard thing, but the group is awesome. There’s something for everyone there. We do runs, cycling stacks and circuit training stacks, so we do a lot of strength training. Strength training has been something I’ve leaned on since my early twenties and it is what transformed my body from the skinny, fat. I’d lost all the weight but what made my body look different was the strength training.

It’s amazing how strength training can change your body. It makes you feel so much better in a different way than cardio does. Especially riding the bike, you get this endorphin rush off of it. Tom hates cardio but I love the strength training because I feel like it has a completely different effect from improving your self-esteem, how you feel and the energy you have.

One is you get stronger and you can lift heavier weights or you can do more reps. You start to see your body transform. That’s what strength training gives you. It makes me feel cool in a lot of ways.

Tell us about Miles, Muscles & Motivation. What inspired it? What exactly is it?

We were all starting to come out of the pandemic. It hit me on quarantine. I was writing 2, 3, 4 hours a day because I could. I was working from home and if I had twenty minutes, I would jump on the bike or do a two-hour stack on the weekends. I realized that we were all going to start to go away from our bikes. We were going to go away from the things that we had gotten so used to.

People were starting to run and sign up for races. I wanted a place where we could celebrate all things fitness and continue to feel motivated. I was scared coming out of the pandemic. I’m in the best shape of my life. What does that mean when I start business travel again? What does that mean when I’m not at my bike five days a week? I wanted a place where we could continue to have a conversation or a mindset. That’s where the motivation piece comes in.

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

I post a morning motivation every day. It’s usually a cheesy quote, but I break it down. I’m super vulnerable about my own journey. There are days that are hard. It’s hard to get out of bed some days. There are a lot of mental health issues out there. I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety throughout the pandemic. I want people to have a safe place where they can share whatever they need to share. Keep it in a fitness-activated mindset, but we talk about nutrition.

I have two nutritionists who are moderators, so they’ll post recipes and tips. It’s a place where anybody looking for weight loss help or who wants to run a beast of a Spartan race can have that opportunity. A little bit of everything for people just to keep them going as we move into this next phase of who knows what post-pandemic life is going to look like.

I hope it’s really post-pandemic.

I have moments where I’m like, “No. Please. We’re not going the other way.”

I like that you mentioned the fear of it because that’s real. There are people that come easily to get up and have the discipline to do things or do the same things over and over again. It’s not difficult, but as life gets hectic, it is hard to balance everything. It’s hard to always choose the healthy thing. There are all these other things you could be doing. Sometimes you just want to go with the path of least resistance. It’s a scary thing to think how easily you could slide back to wherever where you were for each individual.

That’s what we talk about. We lift each other up. We have a woman in our group who is in the golf championship at her club. We all made her a little “Good luck, Donna” sign. It’s not just about Peloton anymore. Although that’s a big part of who we are as a group, we all know there is a life outside of Peloton. As we get busier and busier, we want to celebrate the wins, talk about the struggles and help people be the best they can be in whatever that means.

You have had quite a bit of growth. It’s only been around for a couple of months.

I started it and kept it to myself for a few days because I was scared. I was fearful like, “Am I going to put myself out there like this?” I had been an admin in a number of other groups. I never had my own group that I was going to start and run. “Will people even like this?” In the few months that we have been around, we are at almost 3,500 members. Something is working. We’re catching on really fast. My transformation has been a big part of that. I share it pretty openly of I was in a bad place once upon a time. I talk a lot about the struggles that I’ve had along the way. I’m willing to share pretty much everything about me and my life so that people feel that they can connect and they can be vulnerable too.

Has there been anything that surprised you about starting up the new group, whether it’d be interactions or people’s reactions?

I have people reach out to me all the time privately and tell me stories of how it has changed their life or maybe didn’t want to get out of bed that day. Mental health is something we talk a lot about in the group. The second week that we were around, we did a mental health stack. We did it with Kendall’s rides around mental health and how to open conversation about it.

Post-pandemic people are suffering. People are suffering from mental health during the pandemic. Mental health is something that we have got to continue to talk about as a country. I’ve had people reach out and say, “I was in a dark place and because of your post this morning, I decided that I was at least going to begin on the bike for ten minutes.”

It’s impactful when somebody says that you stopped them from having some suicidal thoughts or whatever that might be. I’ve cried a lot knowing that I am in fact making a difference. A big part of my whole life is changing the world and impacting people. I’ve worked in nonprofit development my whole career. To be able to impact people through my personal story, not just by raising money, has been transformational for my own personal wellbeing as well.

Is anyone welcome in your group? Is it limited to men, women or anybody?

We have men, women, and people who have owned their bikes for years, have been to every HRI, and know all the instructors. We have people who are waiting on their bikes that are so excited to get involved in something. We have people who are on a big weight loss journey. We have one person who wants to lose 100 pounds. We have people who are veteran athletes who run ultramarathoners. I have one lady who’s training for a 50-miler, which I will never do. It appeals to everyone because mindset, in particular, is something that can be difficult or valuable no matter where you are on your journey. We share a lot of different professional athlete stories. We’re trying to keep people going every day.

Mental health is something that we have got to, as a country, continue to talk about. Share on X

Do you personally have a preferred instructor?

I do. Jess King is my spirit animal. I’ve been with her twice in the New York Studio. I would love for the studio to reopen. I rode my 100th and 350th ride with her and now I’m at almost 1,800 rides. I rode 1,000 rides in 2020 during the pandemic. It took over my life in a good way. Instead of going out to dinner, I was on the bike.

It does so much for anybody, the mental side of it, to keep working out even if you don’t think that it will. All those times you were working out, that’s keeping you in a better mood and happier.

There are more endorphins. We weren’t getting that interaction with people but I could get on the bike with ten of my closest Peloton friends and still feel like we were at happy hour together just in a different way. I love the connections I’ve made. The very first week of Miles, Muscles & Motivation, we had a meetup in Austin. A bunch of us flew to Austin and all met. There were twelve of us.

We have meetups planned all over the country, which is so exciting that people are vaccinated. They’re feeling good. They’re ready to travel. We’re meeting in Seattle, Bay Area and Nashville, which I have 35 MMM members doing the Spartan in Nashville. I feel like my virtual community is becoming my real community. I’m so blessed to have all of them in my life.

It seems like that is also a frequent story in Peloton. It’s just people on Facebook and the next thing you know, you’re flying across the country to meet them.

It’s weird. People are always thinking like, “How do you know these people?” I’m like, “I met them through Facebook.” They’re like, “You went and saw them?” “Yes, I did. I know I’m a weirdo.” They’re truly my best friends. If they call me and said, “I need you,” I would jump on a plane to California. I feel very strongly that the thing that separates Peloton from so many other exercise regimes I’ve ever done before is the love, connection and the real comradery that the bike brings.

It’s a whole different separate motivator to get you on the bike or the Tread when you’re not feeling it because you don’t want to let people down. If you said you’re going to be there, you got to be there.

I’ve always looked for accountability partners in real life to go to 24-hour fitness. It was always hard to find that real-life person willing to show up at 4:30 in the morning every day. There are millions of people all over the country who are willing to show up, help you and get you on that bike, on that Tread or in that strength class. We have a big group doing the Spice Girls yoga. There’s something for everyone. There’s somebody out there that you can connect with, be friends with and count on, which is the best part of what we do.

Even if you have somebody that wants to be your accountability partner, their schedules have to match. Thanks to the internet, you can cast that net a lot wider to find things that fit together.

Also, time zones. There are so many different things that make it work. It doesn’t matter what fitness level you’re at. You are all there together and it’s a cool thing.

What is your leaderboard name and how did you come up with it?

My leaderboard name is Blndbmbshll. When I started riding, my leaderboard name was JB Strong. My initials are JB and I wanted to always remember to be strong. As I got into the Peloton community and I met more Pelotoners, I met somebody who said, “I love your leaderboard name, but it’s not you. I think you should be Blonde Bombshell.”

I was still in the middle of my weight loss journey and I was like, “I am not a bombshell.” I didn’t see myself that way, but I changed it. Honestly, as I have gone on this journey, it has become part of my persona. It gave me confidence that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I am now the Blonde Bombshell. I believe that in my head. You can be whatever you want. That’s one of the great things. Your leaderboard name can become who you are. You’re a reflection of that in a big way.

As Dr. Jenn would say, “If you say it enough, you will become that. It will become part of your persona.”

Isn’t it funny? That’s part of who you are. People have always said, “Would you ever change your leaderboard name?” The answer is absolutely not. It is who I am.

I would never change my leaderboard name. I wouldn’t change it even for a second for somebody because somebody might steal it and then I would be super upset.

Every time I see somebody even close to my leaderboard name, I’ll get upset. There’s a Mom Bombshell out there and we ride together sometimes.

Do you have any advice for people that are just now entering the world of Peloton?

I heard this on your other show. Join a tribe and find your people. Don’t just join and sit in the background. Engage, like posts and comment on posts. If somebody is in your neighborhood in that group, send them a message and get involved. Don’t be afraid. There is a group out there, the official Peloton group, where I would not probably engage on a regular basis. That place is scary.

It used to be such a good place.

The smaller groups, especially those who are intentionally safe places, that’s where you can make friends. You can become whatever you want. Show off and meet cool people, but you can’t just sit on the sidelines. You got to jump in and start to be a part of it. Otherwise, you’re a voyeur in some way.

Along those lines, though, since you’re doling out advice, how do people get past the fear of putting themselves out there? Do you have any suggestions?

For me, it was even just starting with a like button or a love button. In groups like ours, I have so many people who have been involved in Peloton for a long time. This person is riding in this ride and I might say, “I’m going to ride that ride too.” It then starts to snowball. We are intentional in if you are going to comment, we’re usually going to comment back and try to bring you in even closer.

I do a new member welcome every week to welcome all the new members and tag everybody. I entice people to put their leaderboard names out there and where they’re from. I respond to every single person who said something on that feed because I want them to know that I’m paying attention. You’re here. I see you. I believe in you.

I always tell people, “If you want to reach out to me personally and just say, ‘I’m new and I don’t know what I’m doing,’ that’s what I’m here for.” It can be scary. I’m going to talk to a stranger, but yes, you are going to talk to a stranger. What’s the worst thing that could happen? They don’t respond. We got to start to know that we are important people. We have our own story to tell and we want to make friends. There’s nothing wrong with that.

TCO 222 | Weight Loss Journey

 

Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you on social media, your group and all that stuff.

The group again is Miles, Muscles & Motivation. We’re on Facebook and we have an Instagram page. I am Blndbmbshll on the leaderboard and I’m @1blndbmbshll on Instagram. We would love to have you. The more, the merrier. Come join us. Get in shape, find some people to be friends with and let’s kick this post-pandemic world’s butt. Let’s do that together.

Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I feel a little bit like I’m talking to celebrities. It’s a little strange for me, for sure. I feel very lucky to have been part of this.

We feel honored that you’re here. We appreciate it. Thank you.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next episode?

It is going to be Natalie Oven. That is an awesome interview. I can’t wait to share it with you, guys.

Until then, where can people find you?

You can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram, the Bike, and the Tread @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Wherever you’re getting your podcast from, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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