Episode Description: What constitutes patent infringement when it comes to leggings?

• John Mills joins us to discuss Peloton’s strength strategies.
• Will the Tread ever be bigger than the Bike?
• Dr. Jenn – How to be consistent in your workouts.
• Peloton welcomes its first adaptive athlete instructor – Logan Aldridge.
• Men’s Health and Shape both have articles about Logan Aldridge.
• Boxing has arrived!
• Self has boxing tips for newbies.
• Peloton celebrates International Day of Disabilities.
• Member Dustin F. shows us hearing accessibility features of Bike+.
• Dara Treseder talks with Salesforce about building a community.
• Angelo joins us to talk about recovering from our Thanksgiving feast(s).
• Daniel McKenna is back.
• Kristin McGee talks to The Manual and the Long Island Herald about mindfulness.
• We now know when past guest Andolyn Medina will be competing for Miss America.
• There’s a new artist collaboration with Queen plus an apparel drop.
• German instructor Irene Scholz is leaving and has a surprising comment about her exit.
• The Boston Globe’s advice column has a Peloton question.

All this plus our interview with Rosalyn Arntzen!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

It’s Bout Time! Peloton Debuts Boxing plus our interview with Rosalyn Arntzen

Let’s get right to it. What do you have in store for people?

We are going to have a visit from John Mills. We are going to talk about some of this lawsuit stuff going on with Peloton and Lululemon. We also have some other things to talk to John about things he’s posted. I don’t want to give away too much. I’m curious about his take on some things. We had a visit from Dr. Jenn. She is going to help us with being consistent in our workout. We then have a visit from MetPro. Angelo talks to us about recovering from our Thanksgiving feast.

We might have gone off the wagon a little bit.

We are going to be talking about the newest Peloton instructor who is the first adaptable athlete that Peloton has hired. We’re also talking about Peloton’s hearing accessibility. They have a Peloton member that went and looked at a Bike+ to see all of the hearing accessibility. There are a ton of new information about all of the instructors. We have some interesting stuff to discuss, about the German instructor who left. There are some interesting posts that have been made that we are going to do a deep dive into.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, 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. If you would be so kind, leave us a review and we have a new review. This is from DW Chk. It says, “Outstanding resource. I’ve only had my Peloton Bike+ for two and a half months, and I’m a newbie to cycling. I’m so grateful for the recommendation to listen to this podcast. Tom and Crystal produce a professional informative, upbeat and entertaining podcast every week. It has been so enlightening to learn about Peloton and cycling through The Clip Out. I started by listening to recent episodes, and now I am working my way from the earliest to the most recent ones. Learning about Pelican’s evolution, as well as Crystal and Tom’s fitness journeys has been fascinating.” Thank you very much.

Thank you for such a kind review.

You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. We had so many people who joined the group. We don’t know where they came from but there was an onslaught. I spent all day Tuesday approving.

Somebody must have posted about us.

I guess so. Thank you. Finally, you can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. We have a YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch these episodes. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us once again is John Mills from Run, Lift and Live. How is it going, John?

How is it going? What’s happening?

If he already looks tuckered out, it’s because we were having a very funny conversation that you will never get to know. You missed that out.

You guys missed it. I’m feeling a little bit better and you can tell I’m married. I ran into the gym in my garage and it was cold. I started working out. I immediately strained my back. I knew it was because I didn’t stretch. I needed help to get out of the ground but I was afraid to text Erica because she would come in there and say, “Did you stretch for 10 minutes?” I was afraid to call her. I have my phone right there. I’m surfing the internet and I can’t get up.

Your googling for how the best recoveries when you forget to stretch.

I’ve eventually crawled out of the garage.

Especially on cold days, you’ve got to warm up. You can’t jump right into that. You’ve got to warm up slowly.

Especially in Connecticut. It gets cold there.

I know better. I couldn’t get myself to call Erica to help me out.

Does she know you crawled out of your garage?

She knows now. I couldn’t face her broken in the garage.

Have you already told her or do you assume she’s going to know when you say it here? I promise you, she’s not listening. They don’t. Crystal, when was the last time you listened to an episode of Reel Spoilers, the one you were on?

I don’t listen to that either.

I don’t even listen half the time when we’re doing it. People can tell. I guess we should dig in at long last. You had an article or a conversation you started about Lululemon. What does constitute a patent infringement on leggings?

This was interesting to me. You did a couple of quotes. I’ll recap to let you gather your thoughts there. You had a couple of quotes that you included. One of them was, “The Miami based fashion lawyer Bogdan Enica said, ‘If you look at all the facts together, it’s obvious. Peloton canceled their agreement with Lululemon then turned around and put very similar garments on the same rack. It would be hard for some consumers to tell them apart.’ Also, according to Ashlee Froese, a Toronto based fashion and branding lawyer, ‘Peloton ended the co-branding agreement, then very quickly came to market with their own line.’ Did they just reverse engineer the product and then say, ‘We’re going to freeze you out Lululemon?”

This was helpful for me because it broke it into two components. It’s like the infringement complaint and then the unfair competition leg of this thing. What I got from the article was the infringement, they may or may not win that. This article is trying to suggest that Lulu may have a point with regards to the unfair competition complaint. They’re saying that the consumer may not be able to recognize the difference between what was previously Lululemon and now as a Peloton product because they were on the same rack. One day it’s on the rack and it’s Lululemon and then the next day, it’s on the rack and it’s Peloton.

Do they mean literally on the rack?

Yeah, because Peloton was selling Lululemon athletic wear.

You've got to find your motivation. You're not ever going to get fit or lose weight by going to the gym once for three weeks. Share on X

I was making sure before I made my next point, which is I got to think that about 0.001% of their sales are from racks. Most of them are online.

I get that but that actually makes it worse. It’s still the same rack being the online shop. One day it was Lululemon, then you turn around the next day and it was Peloton, and they look the same. I got to add at this point that I did not know that I had previously bought Lululemon gear.

There were clothes she purchased that she had forgotten that she owned.

I wore them. I just didn’t realize they were Lululemon because I bought them for the color, not Lululemon, unlike a lot of people that buy for Lululemon. Also, while we were in Boston, I went to the Peloton store and they had a 40% off sale. I ended up buying the new Peloton apparel. It’s the same fabric that I didn’t realize I had. I’m sitting there looking at them side-by-side and I will say this, they looked identical. They have pockets in the same place on the sides. They have a pocket on the back band in the exact same place. The seaming is the same. The fabric is an almost identical feeling, and the bra is exactly the same. Other than the fact that one has Lululemon on it and one does not, they look identical. The fabric is slightly different but I don’t know that the average person would know that.

I didn’t look at any of the garments and I didn’t buy them. I thought I read something about one bra that had extra mesh material or something.

If that’s the case, I did not see it. I didn’t take a tape measure and look for extra fabric or anything, but just laying them side by side, everything looks the same to my eyes.

Was pocket placement that groundbreaking?

In leggings, it is for sure.

There’s a finite number of places where you can put a pocket.

They didn’t use to have pockets at all. This one has and the seams are the same. There are different ways you can construct a garment. For instance, you don’t get the dreaded cameltoe. Depending on where the seams are, that can make a difference. That’s just one example of how you want to be careful with the seams.

They hide the cameltoe by putting the pocket there. It’s called Kangarootoe because it got a pouch right there. That’s how that works. I’m high fashion. A lot of people don’t know this, but my middle name is Gucci.

Had they done that, there would be no lawsuit.

I don’t know if that’s all there is to it.

I was asking the question in the article, “Is this a good look or bad look? Does anyone care?” It’s like humor for me.

It seems to me like it’s a means to get money in the end.

I don’t think the average consumer cares. This is something that Peloton and Lululemon will go round and round about. At the end of the day, the average person is like, “You’re selling leggings. Here’s my money.” I don’t think most people care. Also, there have been lots of sales on Peloton apparel. I wonder if they are using that as a way to generate revenue quickly. They dropped the price but the price is high enough when you drop it.

Especially when it’s all one thing now.

They’re probably looking at, “We can price this stuff as we did before. We can drop it in half and we’re probably keeping as much money as we did previously because we don’t have to split it.” It’s like when you sell something on Groupon. If I sell a ticket on Groupon and I can do the sale through my own list, I don’t have to split the money. I can actually have a lower ticket price but keep more of the money. I wonder if they are using that to get quick cash influxes.

I don’t know about cash influxes but I do think that they are trying to get more products out there as quickly as possible. There have been a lot of people that say, “I don’t like the new fabrics.” To me, they don’t look any different. They’re good but I feel like there are people that don’t agree with that. There are people that push back and say that it’s not the same quality as before. They are trying to get it in front of as many people as possible to get rid of that notion.

I’ve got a question about it. This is something that was probably asked in one of the other articles and that is, is anybody buying this stuff that isn’t a Peloton fanatic?

No. The brand hasn’t reached the point where somebody is like, “I don’t own or use Peloton but I want Peloton leggings.” I’m not saying that there’s nobody out there. I can’t imagine that there’s a significant number of people that see Peloton as a brand name in the same way that you do Nike or Adidas. It’s more like buying a Van Halen t-shirt. You’re buying it because you like Van Halen. You’re not buying it because of the quality of the shirt.

When I hear that, I start thinking from a court perspective that it probably doesn’t change anything. I saw Lululemon in a sense of another major brand like Nike. It could be anybody buying that. Whereas from a Peloton perspective, you were probably in that Peloton ecosystem with a bike or some type of a product. That’s why you would see that. Does that change the credence and credibility of the case at all?

It could be because the reason you could have a Peloton-Adidas collaboration is that Adidas was the clothing line and Peloton was Van Halen. When you buy a van Halen shirt, you’re not like, “Is this a Hanes shirt?” You’re just like, “I’ll take the Van Halen shirt.” I wouldn’t think of a Lululemon and Adidas collaboration because it’s like, “We already sell clothes. We don’t need it.”

The counterpoint to that is they bought Mirror and then it became a thing. Now they are in direct competition with Peloton. They weren’t in direct competition on the clothing line but in their mind, Peloton went too far and cross that line of copying what they did, so now it’s on. To me, that’s where they crossed the line because they have the Mirror stuff too.

It’s on like Crazy Kong, which was the knockoff of Donkey Kong. It looked just like it. It was probably the Czechoslovakian version or something but it’s a thing.

It’s like when you’re playing Pac-Man back in the day, and then Atari came out with Pac-Man. You’re like, “That wasn’t Pac-Man. That Pac-Man was horrible.”

Moving along, you also had an article outlining the development of the strength space.

You had some interesting dates in there.

I post stuff so that we can start a conversation.

We’re continuing that conversation. For people who aren’t looking, we’ve got 2014, Peloton released the first connected fitness bike. In 2017, NordicTrack released the first electromagnetic strength device. In August of 2018, Tonal released the first electromagnetic strength device with AI. On September 18 that same year, Mirror released the first fitness Mirror. In February of 2020, Tempo released the first strength Mirror with form correction and rep counting. In June 2020, Lululemon acquired Mirror. In July 2020, Tonal added computer vision, which is amazing.

In September 2020, with $2 billion in free cash, Peloton’s CEO, John Foley said in an interview when asked about possible strength acquisitions, “There’s not that many awesome innovation technology companies in the fitness category. One of the reasons Peloton is doing well is there hasn’t been that much innovation, capital, software or content for that matter going into the fitness category. We will be acquisitive when it makes sense, but it’s more a shallow pool of targets than you want it to be.”

I was trying to do the outline because I remember when Steve Ballmer came out and he’s like, “An iPhone? It doesn’t have a keyboard.”

Remember when Blackberry was the big thing, and then iPhones came out and there was a big debate. It’s worth noting the timeline. It’s worth it to ask the question. It’s worth it to talk through it. As we’ve been talking about, Peloton is an amazing company. They have the Bike, which was an amazingly innovative product but, what comes next? What are they doing? What’s going to happen with the Guide? What’s going to happen with all the new things like the boxing? How does that play into the Guide? How does that play into the AI? What’s going to happen with the gaming? I hear this as Peloton needs to be careful. It’s like a history lesson but we can see it happening in real-time too. It’s fascinating.

If you look at that timeline, it makes you wonder like maybe those things ended up not being all that transformational. It makes you wonder if machine learning and AI with computer vision will turn out to be transformational things. With all that stuff in the timeline, does that make that statement that John Foley made in  June 2020 or whatever sound a little misguided or at a different step with innovation? Does it make it sound that way? That was the question I was posing.

As I’m sure you noted in there, only time will tell how this will all pan out. It is an interesting conversation point. I thought it was worth sharing.

Finally, you had some interesting thoughts about treadmills and their future in the Peloton Pantheon.

I was checking out Money DJ, which is a Taiwanese site, and their local direct line which is one of Peloton’s manufacturers. They tend to report on things that are going on. They made a statement about something we already knew. They said the customer, which they are referring to Peloton, doesn’t have a need for as much manufacturing for treads as for bikes. That’s not news. We knew that, but it made me think like we’ve heard Peloton talk about the fact that they know running is a space they want to get into. There are a lot of runners more than there are bikers. If they get into this space, they should be able to expand.

 

We’ve seen how bikes have exploded through time and there’s magic to the bike. Most Peloton riders say there’s some type of magic to it that makes you want to get back on. I always thought it was the content. If the tread isn’t taking off as the bike did, is that because it’s going to take time? Is it because there’s something about that magic that’s very specific to the bike that doesn’t happen with the tread? Is it because people will use digital and they can use any treadmill, that’s why it’s not the same as the bike? I was posing a bunch of questions about the fact that the bike is highly sought after.

Also, people who have purchased a treadmill probably don’t need to buy a treadmill soon. If you’ve bought an exercise bike in the past, you probably did not buy the top of the line or expensive bike until you came to Peloton. There are exceptions to this. I’m making a general statement. With a treadmill, you might have already bought not necessarily Woodway expensive top of the line, but you might have invested $2,000 into a treadmill in the past. You’re going to wait until that bad boy is dead. You’re not going to be purchasing another one nearly as quickly as you would other fitness equipment. I think that’s a part of it.

I think there’s another aspect which is that spinning already existed and had solidified its place in the world of fitness. There are a lot of people that don’t see the need for assistance. They get on and they run like, “What do I need you for?” While the content is as good, there are a lot of avid runners who are like, “I’m good. I don’t need your help.” Spin had already been firmly established that it’s like, “You need the help, it’s fun, and there’s good instruction.” A lot of runners are like, “I don’t need you. Why would I pay all this extra money when I can hop on the tread and do it myself?” That’s the obstacle that they are going to have.

One more thought on that is there are a lot of people in the Peloton community that are past the age of 40. There has always been a stigma of if you’re 40, you probably shouldn’t start running. That’s not a great time to start running. That’s usually around the time that people end their running careers or at least change how they interact with running. It’s not that they have to or that they should. I’m saying that tends to happen. That’s another thing. You have this expensive item, and then you have the average person buying expensive items being a person who is 40-plus. You don’t necessarily want to invest all this money in something you’re not even sure how often you’re going to use. It’s like, “Can my joints handle it? Do I only need to stick to walking? I don’t know what I can do and what I can’t do.” There are a lot of things going into that.

You are probably both right. I’ve never been able to come to a conclusion on what that magic is in the bike. I always thought it’s something with the content, but there’s something there that’s magical. I thought, “That rolls into the tread.”

To me, it does because I do get that same feeling. In fact, I get more out of the tread than I do the bike because I’ve learned to enjoy running. The content is magical to me. It’s in the same way that the bike is. I also think that not everybody likes to listen to the instructors, as Tom said. I like learning to run because it has changed how I run. It’s changed my form. Not everybody wants that.

More importantly is they think they don’t need it.

It’s also important to remember that Peloton has only been pushing the tread for a few months. They haven’t been pushing the sales on the tread.

It’s still young. It’s still early. That’s a good point.

There’s definitely room for it to take off. They just need to be focused on it in a way that they don’t entirely seem to be at the moment.

I don’t know that they’ll ever be focused again. There are too many things that they do now. There are too many disciplines.

Thank you, John, for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

Thank you so much.

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Tonal has announced that they have now partnered with Amazon music. There’s a new way to listen to music on your Tonal.

That means you have Apple Music, Amazon Music, and there are radio stations that are already built-in. Tonal helps you train smarter so you can get stronger and faster. It’s like having an entire gym and personal trainer in your home.

It’s the smart gym that knows your limits and then pushes them higher. Their patented digital weight system senses your strength. It adjusts the weight automatically in real-time so you can get the most out of every workout. It does it in little tiny bits. You don’t even realize that you’re lifting more until suddenly you’re so jacked, you’re buying new clothes.

That literally happened to you. Also, I love getting to know the instructors live. It’s fun to hear their personal stories and I love getting a shout out.

No matter what’s your experience level, Tonal has thousands of personalized workouts from strength training to HIIT, yoga, bootcamp, barre and more. They help you unlock your strongest self.

Try Tonal, the smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home. Tonal is so confident that you’ll love it, they offer a full money-back guarantee.

You can get Tonal from $63 per month and 0% interest over 48 months. Visit www.Tonal.com and for a limited time, get $100 off when you use promo code, The Clip Out, at checkout. Tonal, be your strongest.

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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, and her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books, including Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn, hello.

I couldn’t get out of my bike.

That’s perfect. You’re in the right place. Paul has a question for you. He says that he struggles with getting on the bike on a regular basis. How does he motivate himself for the first minute of a workout over the long term? He goes in streaks.

There are a few things. One is I would recommend setting up a reward for yourself, whatever it is. Let’s say if your goal is to do however many days in a row, or you create your plan and you say, “I want to make sure that I ride three times a week for a month.” At the end of the month, if you have done your twelve times, you let yourself get some Peloton apparel or something that is exercise-related that will make the exercise even more enjoyable. That’s one thing. Another thing is to take a live class. I don’t know about you guys but once I check that box of I’m in, I’m in. My house could be on fire and I’m going to flip in and I’m going to show up because I checked that box.

Another thing is if you have any other friends in the Peloton community, even if you’ve never met them, to make a plan to ride together. You say like, “I’ll meet you on the bike. I’ll look for you on the leaderboard. Text me when you’re on your bike.” Another thing is in general or in the bigger picture is to have a workout partner. I remember in the late ‘90s, I read a study about people who ran marathons. They found that people who ran with friends were significantly more likely to complete the marathon.

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At the time, it had been a life goal of mine to one day run a marathon. I don’t care if I crawl or walk, I want to complete a marathon. I went out to twenty friends, and this was before the internet. I actually called people on the phone. I ended up getting ten people committed. By the time the marathon came, there was one person left. We had trained the entire year together and we got very close. We became good friends. We’ve learned so much about each other. We have been through so much running in the cold, the rain, and all that sort of stuff. The point is that comradery and accountability can make a very big difference.

The other thing is to look at how you talk to yourself. When I don’t want to get on the bike, the thing I always tell myself is I think of exercise as medicine for longevity. We’ve talked about one of my goals is to live a long life. That is something that motivates me to train. Sometimes what I will say to myself if I’m getting honest is, “Just take your mess and get on the bike.” I think of it as my medicine for living a long life. That’s another way.

The other thing is most of us find that once we get on, we’re committed. Tolerate that it’s hard to get on the bike, that it’s hard to start and say, “It’s okay that it’s hard to get on the bike. It’s okay that it’s hard to start but I can do this and I’ve done it. I’ve had a hundred times where it’s been hard to start, and then somehow I do it. That’s awesome. That’s a cool thing about me.” Use it to give yourself respect and that you are so awesome. You may don’t feel like doing it but you get on the bike and you do it. Those are some of the key elements that can help you get past this.

Those are all good. I would just add that if you start a class and it’s not hitting, don’t get off the bike. Try a different class because sometimes you didn’t find the right match. It’s okay to pivot.

I do think that doing class searches by music, by instructor or by whatever it is that turns you on can help. Also, on days where you’re struggling more, do a search for the easiest class or the highest-rated class. Do a search based on something specific that you like. Maybe you’re into Denis Morton’s reset classes so I’ll take those. Try to cater to where you are mentally and emotionally. I tend to find that when I take the time to pick the class thoughtfully, I always end up in the class that provides me with exactly the message and the workout that I needed.

Thank you so much for all of that. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. I post all of my Peloton workouts on Instastories. You can check them out every day. You can also find me in InStyle magazine. I have a weekly sex and relationship column called Hump Day By Dr. Jenn.

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Welcome to the Peloton family, Logan Aldridge.

He is the first adaptive training specialist. He is going to be a consultant at first. My understanding is that at a later date, he is going to be a Peloton instructor as well. Either way, it’s very cool. I love seeing the adaptive athletes and seeing all the different ways that they literally adapt to be able to do the workouts that work for them.

He already had a couple of articles out there. Shape magazine had an interesting article about Logan and his background, as did Men’s Health.

They both talked about that he is the first adaptive instructor over at Peloton. Logan has been very involved in the CrossFit games. For those of you who are interested in CrossFit, this could be a good fit with Peloton.

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Peloton has finally revealed boxing. I guess you could say, “It’s about time.”

That’s interesting how they introduce this one because this time around, they have a two-week program. If you want to take the classes within the boxing like the new type of class, you can only get it if you join the program. The way that the programs work is you take one class at a time, then it unlocks the next class. You can skip one class but you can’t skip all the way to the end. You have to skip one class at a time, and you can only do one week at a time. This is going to be a two-week program. It’s called Get Hooked Peloton Boxing Program. You can get it on the app, the bike or the tread. It’s all shadowboxing.

I hear that for now, it’s shadowboxing. It probably will have something to do with that Guide, which we had talked about months and months ago when we first talked about the Guide coming out. Also, you can expect to see more classes. This is just the first set. If you want to see more, take these. I skipped the very first class because it was all the basics and I got that. I’ve been doing FightCamp for a long time. I also use my bag because I don’t like to punch the air.

I took Rad’s class and it was starting to do combos. The first ten minutes are good about breaking down each of the different moves that you’re going to be doing into small combos. The last eleven minutes is intense, which is exactly how it should be. It was very good instructions. If people are interested in learning about boxing and the moves used in a boxing gym, Peloton does have you covered. The instructors that are teaching are Rad Lopez, Selena Samuela, and Kendall Toole. That’s just a start. I believe more instructors will be added along the way and more classes are coming.

Self.com had an article about five things to know before you take the new Peloton boxing classes.

This article was highlighted by Selena. She talks about the fact that even if you already know the basics, you should still go through the first week of classes. I already skipped that first one, Selena. It talks about how it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it. It’s never bad to go back and do basics. They want people to be safe as they try this. Please do follow that. Something that was very interesting is being prepared to focus. A lot of times, when you’re taking a cycling class, your mind wanders.

I don’t do that so much with running. I listened to what the instructor is saying when I run, but I know a lot of people do. It’s their meditative time. They come up with a lot of great ideas on the bike as well. This is not that. You need to be in the zone. I thought that was very good advice, and also dress in supportive yet comfortable exercise gear. That’s very important, ladies. Your hair, if you wear gloves at all and you actually punch something, you will have static. Be prepared for that.

That’s not a concern I have for two reasons.

They also suggest embracing the challenge to hone your confidence. It can be intimidating if you think that you’re going to get hit. You’re not going to get hit with shadow boxing. It’s okay.

Even if you do, it’s a shadow. Even I can beat up a shadow.

They also suggest stacking the boxing with other workouts. All of these workouts thus far are twenty minutes for the first week, and then 30 minutes for the second. I definitely think stacking is a good idea. Thirty minutes can be a lot, but the first week, especially when you’re learning and you’re going pretty slow the first ten minutes, you need to add more to that workout if it’s a day that’s not a rest day for you. Don’t think you’re going to go in and get your whole workout done in twenty minutes with that first week.

Peloton has commemorated the International Day of Persons With Disabilities.

This is the first time that they have celebrated it. It was very cool because they have a blog that you could learn about the future of accessible fitness, and hear real stories from the Peloton community at the link in the bio, which is out there. Definitely check that out. There are fascinating great stories out there.

Also, Peloton posted something from a member by the name of Dustin F, talking all about hearing accessibility features on the Bike+.

This was helpful for people. It’s a good video. Sometimes these videos that people do in the stories are so dry. This one has a good personality. I recommend that people check it out because a lot of us know people have different levels of hearing. To be able to see all of the accessibility features, what they can do, and what they can’t do in one place is super helpful.

Peloton’s Marketing VP, big shot, head honcho sat down with Salesforce on their YouTube channel. She’s got an official title. I think that’s it.

Super VP, that’s what we’re going to call it. Her name is Dara.

I’m sorry, I forgot. I didn’t say her name. I was so focused on getting her job title. My apologies, Super VP Marketing, the chief important person.

She sat down to talk about how Peloton is changing fitness by building a community. There have been a lot of conversations about this since Dara has started. She has been very focused on that and they are doing a good job at telling that story.

 

The link to that video will be in the newsletter. If you want to check that out, go to theclipout.com and sign up for our newsletter there.

You can watch the whole thing.

—

Joining us is Angelo from MetPro.

Hello, guys.

We don’t have a question. It’s more of a confession. We did our Thanksgiving trip and I did not MetPro it at all.

It wasn’t great. We had good intentions to only have one bad meal a day.

That meal was seven and a half hours long.

Our intention was also that we would exercise every day. We then got to the hotel and they didn’t have a microwave. They didn’t even have vending machines at this hotel. There was nothing at this hotel. We went to the CVS every day. That was our breakfast, lunch and dinner when we weren’t eating out at a restaurant. It was not our finest moment.

You either win or you learn. If we’re going to take five, what’s behind door number two? Occasionally, you have one of those trips where nothing goes as planned. You don’t end up eating at the restaurant you expect you’re going to be at. You don’t end up with the people you expect you’re going to be with, and the hotel is different from what you had planned. I totally get it. The damage is not done in one meal. People ask me this all the time. They’ve just signed up and they’re like, “I’m ready to go but I have this family or this night with the guys or the night out with the girls coming up in three weeks, and I’m nervous about it.” I interrupt him and I’m like, “I don’t care.” It’s important because I’m trying to make a point. One meal doesn’t matter.

It’s the 48 meals between now and then that I want to back 85% on. If we can do that, then we’re good, then we’re golden. Here’s the ironic part, and we have the data and the stats to back this up. When they have a weekend away, most people actually run into problems the week after. What happens is they take a long weekend and maybe they have a bad meal or two, but then they get back and they are short on time because the last week was a three-day week, and now they have deadlines and they have extra work.

Now it’s day two, day three where leftovers are happening. It’s like what happened to you guys hitting the CVS for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s when the trouble happens. Quick tips for next time, you never going to get it perfect. The idea is the next time it happens, we shave a percent or two off. It’s a little better each time. The number one thing is you get right back on track when you get home and in routine. Tom, that’s exactly what you did. How many pounds back down are you already?

Within the first three days, I lost 8 or 9 pounds. Normally that would not be good. Some people freak out when we talk about weight loss. They’re like, “Don’t ever talk about weight loss.” I’m like, “Okay, Pollyanna.”

It’s basically water weight at this point.

I had gone on a mini binge so I corrected. It came off super fast.

That’s the key. It’s getting right back into the routine. It ends up serving as this mini little up adjust. No, it wasn’t desirable. What happens is at least if you get back on track, your metabolic rate is revved up. You get right back on track and it’s not going to do permanent damage. The permanent damage happens when now all your glycogen stores are replenished so you’re full. In other words, you have all the sugar stored inside muscles banked for later. If you don’t get back on track, there’s nowhere for the excess to go. It goes on top of it. We call that, body fat.

That’s where getting back on track is the number one thing. Let’s talk about a little bit of nuance. If you are stuck with having to go to a grocery store for food, ideally look for a grocery store that has a deli section. If you think ahead and bring a can opener with you, you can go to any grocery store and worst-case scenario, you could get some healthy canned food in a pinch. The problem with that is it usually doesn’t taste good. Deli counter food tastes good and you can at least get close. That’s what I try and get my traveling clients used to. You’re going to hit a pinch where you need fast food. Don’t do a drive-through. Do a walk-in grocery store to the deli counter.

You’ll end up spending about the same but you can go, “I want half a pound of that vegetable medley, half a pound of this turkey breast, etc.” You’re golden. The last thing is if you can, and this is something that our coaches do, if you know what hotel you’re staying at, you can actually check ahead. It doesn’t sound like this particular hotel was one that had a room service menu. A lot of people assume room service. There’s nothing healthy on that. Usually, there are one or two items. You can always get a salad. The key is if you think ahead and you plan, you either pick up or you have with you a good salad dressing.

The other option is you can order something like a veggie omelet. You’re not going to get yourself into too much trouble. Sometimes that’s what I tell clients to do when I know they’re going to go out to dinner at a restaurant where they’re not going to have a lot of great options. I tell them to eat light or have a salad for dinner. When you get back to the hotel, get room service to drop off a veggie omelet. It’s very filling. It’s mostly protein and works really good.

The problem we ran into with room service at this particular place is it was all super fancy like, “You can get an omelet with an ostrich egg,” or something weird like that. It’s like 80% of what was in the omelet, I couldn’t even pronounce. Normally that’s because it’s chemicals. This was because it was so fancy. I’m like, “I’m not going to eat any of this. Just bring me an egg. Don’t make it weird.”

If it was just me, Angelo, it would have been fine. We ended up at CVS at 2:00 AM buying Pop-Tarts.

Here’s the big picture. Even when you have blowout weekends, the idea is you shouldn’t be gaining 10 pounds. The reason that is going to happen is Tom, we’re right mid to what we call up adjust or metabolic revving cycle. Your body is not super sensitive but you’re in that halfway spot. If we had you at the very tippy-top of your up adjust cycle, ideally, a weekend like this happens, you pick up 2.5 pounds and it’s gone within 48 hours. The nice thing is that our metabolic rates were tracking that. We knew that when you got back, it’s not, “Oh no. Roll out the dice. What’s going to happen?” We knew it’s going to come right back down because we’re tracking your metabolic rate and your responsiveness.

The way I did things prior to MetPro when I was doing it on my own is if I gained 10 pounds, I’d be looking at a month to get that back off. I still have that moment of, “Oh no, what have I done?”

Life happens. The key is routine. That’s why I told you guys this story again. I told it in another interview. I have two clients. Client A is like, “I didn’t have anything ready to go. I didn’t have anything planned. I stopped by the store. I managed to make good choices and I eat through the day without eating any junk food.” Person B says, “I had my breakfast because I shopped in advance. I had my snack and my lunch ready to go. I took it with me. On the way home, I stopped at grandma’s house. I caved because she was making apple pie.” I want you to be person B because person B has the foundation in place for leverage. I can do something with that. If you have a routine that we can anchor to, now I can build on that. If you have those snacks prepped, if you have some lunch ready to go, if you have a routine in place that’s healthy for you, we have the tools to control your metabolism versus letting it control us.

If people would like this sort of advice to prep personally for them, where can they find you?

They can go to MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you.

—

Daniel McKenna is back.

He’s back on the tread. He’s a funny guy. I missed him while he was gone.

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You like your funny Irish guys.

I do. That’s true.

I felt like that but I bet I’m funnier.

You’re getting closer to being built like that every day.

I’m pretty sure I was getting closer to being funnier. I was going to be upset.

You’re always funny. I haven’t met Daniel. I don’t know how smart he is, but you are one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, so smart and funny.

You need to meet more people.

We are glad that Daniel is back. I am glad that Daniel is back. Welcome back, Daniel.

TheManual.com talked to Kristin McGee about mindfulness.

Basically, it’s how to practice mindfulness. According to the expert, the expert is Kristin. This goes through a list of things that you can do to be more mindful. I don’t know about you but December can be a challenge to be mindful of. There is a lot going on.

She had a bit of a mindfulness press tour because she also talked to the Long Island Herald about the same thing.

This one is four ways to kick start a wellness routine. I believe that she’s also talking about mindfulness. That’s nice. Yoga doesn’t get a lot of love from a publicity standpoint. I love seeing that some of our instructors are getting some love.

—

You might remember that we spoke with Andolyn Medina. She was talking about her quest to be Miss America and vanquish all the other states. If you’ve been wondering what’s up with that, it’s been revealed when you will be able to watch that if you are so inclined.

December 16th, 2021 at 8:00 PM on the Peacock Channel. Is that a streaming platform now?

That’s the new streaming platform from NBC. That’s why there’s the peacock. We were going to be getting that anyway because December 16th is when MacGruber hits. Forte is one of my favorites and MacGruber is one of the most underrated comedies of the last decade.

We have to watch Miss America for Andolyn.

We’ll watch her part, then we’re watching MacGruber for some good old fashioned throat rest.

If anybody wants to join us to have a little watch party.

If there are any other MacGruber fans out there, shoot me a message.

We could do both. December 16th, that’s what we are doing.

If you haven’t watched The Last Man on Earth with Will Forte, it is so good. It’s showing on Fox. I think it’s on Netflix.

We’re rooting for you, Andy.

—

We have a new artist collaboration and it is with Queen, the band. I’m all about senior citizens exercising but I think Peloton might be a little tense for the Queen of England. She’s 140 years old.

I don’t think that’s her age. She’s very dignified though.

She is. She would ride her bike. I have to call out the copywriters here though. No one knows who invented the Stadium Anthems. It was The Beatles.

This is probably an eighteen-year-old writing this copy. They don’t know.

It was the Beatles and I can tell you when. It was August 15th, 1965. It was their first show at the Shea Stadium. That’s when Stadium Rock was born. It’s just a fact. This is what happens when you have Millennials writing about classic rock.

It’s not just Millennials. It’s young people who don’t know any better. Don’t ask at me about Millennials, at Tom. I don’t want to hear it.

I won’t be able to find you on Twitter. You can have me all you want.

There are some fun classes that had started. We’ve got Kendall, Ben Aldis, Sam Yo, Ross Rayburn, Jermaine Johnson. I’m totally blanking on the German instructor because I always see his Instagram name opposite “Trainer,” and I can’t remember his actual name, Erik Jäger.

If it was Daniel McKenna. I had to look it up. I had to Google Irish yank Peloton. That’s it.

Also, they haven’t done Peloton apparel for a while with the artist collaboration. They went ahead and released a Peloton and Queen apparel collection.

 

I got to think that there’s a finite number of men that want to wear a shirt that says, “Peloton Queen.” More power to you if you do. I’m just thinking, that might not read the same way it’s intended to a lot of people. I also know that there will be some people who positively love being called the Peloton Queen.

There’s that too. I didn’t buy anything from that.

—

This segment is In Case You Missed It, but I guess we should probably call it Blink and You Miss It. That would be Marina Angela and her time with Peloton.

She wasn’t here very long. She posted that her last class at Peloton would be on Saturday. Since we last recorded, her last class has occurred. A lot of people didn’t even know that she was here and they didn’t know who she was. That’s fair because there have been so many instructors that have been rolled out, and she was specifically teaching to the German audience. A lot of her classes were German. If they didn’t have English subtitles, people missed it, and it was for the tread which has a smaller audience anyway.

It keeps narrowing the potential people that could have interacted with her.

It does so she has moved on.

She’s commented on her moving on.

She did and I’m not sure that this was the most professional way to do this. She posted in a group called Trail and Ultra Runner. She said, “Team, I am on a running sabbatical after a very shitty corporate job experience and need some major inspiration for next year.” She goes on to talk about the inspiration she needs to run twelve Ultras in 2022.

That’s okay then.

You can tell her age is showing here. Her youth is showing here. That was not good.

Some things may be better than to just use your inside voice.

Don’t post in a group on Facebook. People screenshot that crap.

Also, in the In Case You Missed It Segment, there’s an advice column in the BostonGlobe. Thanks to our trip to Boston, we keep getting served Boston articles and this one works for us. It says, “He never lets her win their Peloton competitions. Should he?”

That’s the title. If you go into reading the actual question, it goes into a bit more about the specifics that she uses as examples like he’ll brag about his Ally Love output for a 60-minute ride or how many calories he burns. She says that he won’t let her win but then, on the other hand, she’s using non-winning examples. Those aren’t things you can win.

It sounds like he’s one-upping her. She’ll be like, “I got an output of 48.” I don’t know what output numbers are. He’s like, “I got 57.”

That very well may be. I was going to go back and read Dr. Jenn’s advice on this because she weighed in and I thought it was a perfect peruse. I want to read the whole thing here. She said, “Mrs. Peterson needs to let her husband know that his playful teasing is taking the fun out of her rides. They need to have a conversation where they ask each other, ‘What is the best way for me to support you with your workout plan?’ If he needs someone to be competitive with, he can find someone on the leaderboard, social media, a Peloton chat group or a friend. This does not tend to work well for a lot of husbands and wives.” Amen, Dr. Jenn. Lots of likes on that. Everyone agreed with Dr. Jenn.

She’s good at giving advice.

She should think about it as a career. I thought that was a fun talking point.

—

Joining us is Rosalyn Arntzen. How is it going?

It’s going great. This is super exciting. I’m great to be doing this with you guys.

Tell us, Ros, because you go all over the place back and forth. Where are you right now?

I’m in Saint Martin. The beautiful half-Dutch half-French island in the Caribbean.

Are you on the Dutch side?

Yes, we are.

She explained to me that you spell it differently depending on which side you’re on.

It’s either Sint Maarten or Saint Martin, depending on where you are.

I had a friend on Facebook, a girl I hardly ever talked to. We went to high school together. She is still a girl in my head. She posted that she was there but it was spelled differently. I was like, “Where the hell is that?” I went down a rabbit hole of the history of Saint Martin and I’m like, “I guess it’s the same place.” I never figured it out. I’m glad that you were able to clear it up for me.

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It’s the first time I have heard that. I was like, “That explains so much.”

The weird thing is it is a tiny little island. It would take you probably an hour to drive around it. It is two completely separate countries. When COVID occurred, the border went up and we didn’t cross to the French side. If you add to it, it’s got 400-plus restaurants on this tiny little island.

They were probably jonesing for business because I’m assuming it’s a tourist destination, that’s why there are all the restaurants.

Saint Martin has recovered well but it had Irma first. As it was getting out of Irma, which took them about eighteen months to rebuild, along comes COVID. For most of the locals, that’s their industry. They’ve done a decent job but it’s been hard.

You know what the first question is, how did you find Peloton and when?

I’m not in original or an OG but 2017 was the start of my Peloton journey. As we’re talking, you’ll see that there was a lot more to this journey than just finding Peloton. I went out to lunch with a friend. I worked for Microsoft for many years. I still have been very involved with them since I left. She was coming back from maternity leave. She mentioned that she discovered this thing called Peloton.

She said, “You like cycling and spinning, don’t you? Have you heard of it?” I went, “No, I haven’t.” She said, “They’ve opened a store in Bellevue Square,” which is the East Side Seattle. I thought, “Why not I go along there and give it a try?” I fell in love. I tried this bike. I came home to my husband all enthusiastic and said, “I’m about to buy this bike.” He said, “Where does that go with the treadmill, the other bike and the elliptical that you never used downstairs?” I went, “This one is different.”

You’re like, “We can make room for this one because I’m going to take those other ones and shove them up your butt.”

I had a better answer than that. I was going to put it in the bedroom. To which he said, “It’s going to become a clothes horse?” I was like, “It won’t.” This became a little bit of a challenge as we went along. He would put clothes on it and it was my job to get them off. He said, “If I don’t see that ridden for a week or more, on go the clothes.” You’ll hear a theme for what I’m talking about. You’ve got to find whatever your motivation is and it can be something silly, and it can be something that you have a goal. To me, that first one was he was not going to leave the clothes on the Peloton bike.

Proving someone wrong is a hell of a motivator.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that before. He proactively put clothes on the bike. That’s a little diabolical.

I’ve lost a lot of weight. It’s something that started along that way. I used to try and get to the gym but cycling classes for me were at 5:30 AM, I’d have to leave. I usually worked until 1:00 or 2:00 AM. I run a small business so that’s hard. The next one was at 9:30. I’ve got to be at work so I’d be lucky if I get there once a week. I had a friend who taught a local spinning class. That was somewhat motivational but more often than not, I would text her and say, “I am too tired and sleepy. It’s Saturday.” You’re not ever going to get fit or lose weight by going to the gym once for three weeks. For whatever reason, the stuff downstairs didn’t motivate me. We tried.

It’s boring.

It’s funny you say that, Crystal, because that was my thing with strength training as well. Strength was so tedious. I would book with a trainer. I’d be watching that clock, “It’s only two more minutes with them.” As you probably know, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. I have Tonal and Peloton. Tonal changed all that. It’s engaging and fun. Strength was never that for me. You’ve got to find your motivation. I remember one year I made a New Year’s resolution that lasted about two weeks probably. “I won’t watch television until I’ve done a workout,” but it didn’t work.

It’s too easy to let ourselves off the hook. Life is real and it keeps throwing crap at you. Sometimes it’s exhausting.

I run a consulting firm. We do technology for small businesses. We also do some work for some larger corporations. I’ve been running this business for years but there are times where I didn’t know we’d make it to next month. I remember explaining once to an employee of mine. The veneer is very thin in a small business. These huge corporations, you can maybe not work for six months and they don’t even notice. When you’re running a small business and someone is not pulling their weight, you can go from profitable to non-profitable so quickly.

If you are running that, you’re the one in charge and at the top. For me, it meant a lack of sleep and work. I remember one of the Peloton quizzes they came up with, they said, “Describe something.” I said, “I was a former workaholic couch potato.” It was pretty true because I got back from the office. I sit on the couch. I’d watch television. By the way, I watch a lot less television these days, and I’d be working with my laptop on my lap. That was my day until I fell into bed.

I remember those days. I had a job like that. There were 70 to 80 hours a week and it’s insane.

Being a business owner is rough. Both my parents own small businesses. I watched it growing up.

The thing you learn is you can fit it in. You don’t have to work all those hours and you can still get stuff done. I’m probably less involved hour-wise. The company is doing great. I’m a lot saner than my team and I’m still getting it done. It’s priorities. You could work 24 hours a day and you still wouldn’t get it all done.

There’s always something else on the list to get done. Your Peloton was part of a larger journey for you and I know you had a weight loss journey. When did that start? Where are we at in the timeline?

I always struggled with my weight. There is a reason that occurred. My mother was ill when I was little. She got sick when I was about two. Her idea of recreation was to read a book and watch a movie. I never made exercise part of my life. My dad wasn’t around. They split up when I was young. The activity wasn’t something that became DNA for me. I had moments and blips but nothing sustained. I remember, at university, I used to go to the gyms. I lost a bit of weight and put it back on. As anyone will tell you in a weight loss journey, you lose it and you put more on.

I attempted the treadmill, elliptical, etc., that were in the basement. I didn’t want to use them. I attempted to go to the gym. Peloton was the start of me wanting to make that change. I was lucky that I didn’t have any serious health problems, although having lost over 100 pounds, I feel that I was probably a bit of a ticking time bomb. That was away in the back of my head. I do feel for the first time in my life. This is it.

I purged my wardrobe. Twice I’ve done it now, where it’s like, “I am never going to wear that stuff ever again.” I feel confident and we’ll get to why I feel that confidence. I struggled with my weight. When I lived in the UK, I did one thing where I ate 500 calories a day. We all know that’s not sustainable and healthy. I lost weight and put it back on. I was the maid of honor at my friend’s wedding. I remembered this back in 2005 and these moments come back to you where I wouldn’t let one drop of champagne touch my lips.

This isn’t life. Food and drink are part of life but you’ve got to learn your way of managing them. Peloton was the start. Crystal, I know you were with all the groups. A lot of folks were saying, “I’ve got my Peloton. I hope I’m now going to lose X pounds.” I hate to say it. I don’t think exercise alone will do it. It is a wonderful way to get you motivated and get you more in touch with your body but it’s nutrition. The bottom line comes down to nutrition. I probably lost about fifteen pounds for Peloton. It was good, plateaued, stalled. We’re now in the summer of 2018 probably.

My uncle is my closest relative in the whole world.  My mom, unfortunately, passed away a few years back. He is a super fit guy. He is in his 70s and climbed Kilimanjaro a few years ago. Constantly, without making me feel bad, he was like, “You need to lose a bit of weight and some exercise.” He was visiting his daughter who lives in New York, my cousin. It’s great to see him but maybe I can go to Peloton studio. The bug has slightly bitten but not fully. In my first eight months, I probably did about 50 rides. It’s still better than I was doing but it’s still not super consistent if you look at how many were paid a month. I didn’t want to be a dork. New York, they are going to make fun of me.

I get it. It’s intimidating. You don’t know what to expect the first time you walk in there.

I was overweight so I was like, “I don’t want to be an idiot. I want to be self-conscious with all these skinny gorgeous people.” I have to say the Peloton studio folks could not have been nicer. It’s amazing. This person said, “It’s your first time. Let me show you around. Is there anything I can tell you?” I’m like, “I’m even more in love.” In those five days, aside from seeing my uncle and cousins, I probably did about five rides. I went every day. We had a hotel that was across the road at that time.

Let’s say the bug had bitten by that point. I came back and kept up the exercise, but I wasn’t losing anymore. It was probably January 2019, this program called Noom popped up in my feed. Something that appealed to me about what they were saying was that it was all about getting rid of the guilt. “I’ve blown it today,” then you go nuts. Not that I was ever somebody who did that but I certainly was probably having more calories than I should have. You hear a lot and you hear Dr. Jenn say this, “Intuitive eating.”

When you’ve got a lot to lose, you don’t have the intuition. Noom was great for me. I lost another 60 to 70 pounds with Noom. Over a year and a half, which included being in quarantine in Saint Martin because we got stuck here. A lot of weird things going on. We all know 2020 and 2021 are crazy years. I got another chunk of weight often. I got stalled again. This is another thing. You see people go, “I’ve got to lose weight by a certain date.” You put so much pressure on yourself because every pound you lose is another pound towards it. I got out of that mentality of when is the deadline or what’s the event by? Every pound I lost was moving forward.

 

Again, I stalled and I was stuck. Noom brought me to that more intuitive approach and then we heard of MetPro. What’s funny is I was cleaning out my photographs because you get thousands of photographs on your phone and I found something. I had a snapshot of MetPro probably years ago but I did nothing. I heard of it through you guys.

It was the next stage for me. I’m not saying I couldn’t have lost all the weight with MetPro, but MetPro has got me into this natural good food, and not hungry. I saw somebody wrote once on one of the threads, “Is it sorcery?” It’s odd. Through Noom, I can have low fat and low sugar food, diet food and count the calories. That was part of that evolution for me. Now, I don’t want it.

It takes you to a new level because you get used to not having the sugar all the time. That’s a huge game-changer because of the cravings. I crave sugar and so not craving sugar is major.

After dinner, it used to be my biggest issue where I would need something. I managed it and had it within my calorie allowance. It might be ice cream or chocolate. I don’t want it now. It’s like, “What happened?”

You stopped the cycle of sugar cravings. That’s what you did.

My husband is completely the opposite. He has a very sweet tooth. That’s fine. That’s his thing. He’s never had to struggle with weight, which is infuriating. He is wonderfully supportive. His journey is my journey. He’ll order dessert sometimes and I’ll have one spoonful and I go, “That was nice.” Noom taught me that, “If you like it, enjoy it. If you don’t like it, don’t come into this fog where you mindlessly eat it.” I’m at a point now and I’m still doing MetPro. Those last 5 to 10 pounds on, I’m probably happy where I am. They are the hardest. They’ve been there a long time.

They do have seniority.

I’ve lost about 25 to 26 pounds with MetPro. It’s taken me about seven months and I don’t care because I’m now at a weight, good God. I’ve sent you the picture, Crystal, of a black lace evening gown. You have to tell me if they were okay.

I saw that. It’s great.

That dress fit me for probably two weeks many years ago. It never fit me again. It was at the back of the wardrobe. I was doing the purge and I’m going, “Let’s see if I’m even remotely close. It fits perfectly.” I need some way to go with a black lace evening gown.

Stupid COVID.

Stupid anything. I didn’t live a lifestyle that has black lace evening gowns very often.

You spend half your time in Saint Martin.

Seattle is not your most elegant black lace evening gowns either.

I get that. It’s a trade-off. If you have to trade, that’s a good one.

I’ll take it but it’s still good to get back in the dress.

I was wearing a hoodie that I won at a conference I went to that I was never able to wear, even though it’s an XL. Now, I put it on and it’s baggy.

It’s such a good feeling. It’s all that hard work. I don’t know about you, Ros, but Tom still struggles with it. He’ll look in the mirror and be like, “Where did I go?” It’s not who he expects to see in the mirror. It takes a while for the internal you to catch up with the external you.

A hundred percent. When I was purging the wardrobe and looking at things going, “I don’t think that will fit me.” I put it on and it’s loose. My head isn’t yet aligned even though this has been a 2.5 to 3-year period. That’s my other thing. I had to take the time. It had to be slow. I had to eat and you see people go, “I have plateaued. What do I do?” It’s like, “Enjoy the plateau. You didn’t put it on. Each bit is stabilizing yet again.” For me, it’s been very much this process. Even in COVID, it wouldn’t be for all of us but I’m in a place I’ve never had to live long-term. I still lost another 15 pounds through the year.

It’s doable but you’ve got to be realistic and know, “What can I do that’s within my terms of reference right now?” 2020, not that I needed to lose another 50 to 60 pounds, but that wasn’t something that was going to happen at that point in my time. I was relieved while everybody else was saying, “I’ve put on that COVID-19.” For me, I still managed to solidify this change in my life and plan ongoing.

Why do you think it’s stuck this time?

The exercise. Even though I said that exercise wouldn’t help you lose when you’ve got a large amount of weight, it’s now part of my DNA. I used to come home, sit down in front of a television and sort of watch television because I was also working. I don’t think I even did that properly. Now I schedule time for my Peloton, Tonal, or swimming when I’m here because we can swim here. Thanks very much in Seattle. It’s a little cold even in the summer. Exercise has made my metabolism efficient. I also think MetPro has got me very efficient. This is what you see with this whole up and down cycle.

When I first started this thing and heard about people doing macros and meal prep, meal prep would have sent me into a tailspin. I’m not ever going to do that. Here are these people who spent their whole Sunday meal prepping. That’s like, “What the hell?” At any time off. I’m not going to spend my time chopping vegetables but it’s not that hard. I have some protein in the fridge, shrimp or chicken. I have brown rice and veggies. I can throw a stir fry together or salad in four minutes.

For me, it’s a shift because before, I would try to take whatever I was eating and shove it into the macros I had been given. With MetPro, I approach it differently because these are the things I can eat and here is how much you can have of them. It’s like, “Make a bunch of chicken and turkey.” Now I can have however many ounces for that meal. It’s so much easier for my brain to process. It’s like, “These are the things you eat. It’s done.”

While it takes time on a Sunday, if that’s the day you choose, it also buys you back time during the weeks because you just grab your thing and you’re ready.

I don’t have to think about it anymore because. It’s done.

I know it works for some people and it’s not that it doesn’t work. I’m like, “Diet suck. Do you know what would make it better? Let’s add math.”

I never did the macro thing. For me, even reading about it was scary. I was like, “I’m not doing that.” It even doesn’t take me that long to prep it. The big thing for me is some chicken. My go-to, especially in Seattle as it was getting colder because now I’m back to salads again, was some protein, chicken, tuna. I’d have some vegetables prechopped up like peppers, baby carrots, and then I’d have brown rice. I do a whole thing in the rice cooker and the rice sits in the fridge. It’s also simple cooking because my go-to spice is I add some lemon pepper. I love lemon in anything. It’s lemon pepper, rice, a tiny little bit of oil, and protein, and lunch is done.

Let me tell you about the recipe I did. I was so proud of it because I made it up. I made my own MetPro stuffed peppers. I took a big bell pepper and I cord it out. I put two ounces of meat in and 1/3 cup of Quinoa in it. I sprinkled cheese on top and cooked it in the oven for 450. It was so good.

It sounds perfect.

It’s delicious. That’s it. I made eight of them, so I’m good for the week for my lunches.

The other thing I find is I can eat the same thing almost every day, and I don’t get bored anymore because I’m now satisfied and not hungry. For whatever reason, I thought I hated Ezekiel bread, the sprout bread. I’ve always liked brown bread, multi-grain but it was like, “I don’t like that stuff.” My coach said, “I suggest you try it again because your palette has probably changed.” I went, “I don’t like it.” She said, “Give it a go.” I tried it and liked it. I used to have yogurt and add honey to it. Now I don’t. I add a bit of peach or Kiwi and it doesn’t need anything else. You’ve got to be to tying stuff that previously you would have always said no. Tom, I hear your story. I appreciate you may not try something new.

For normal people, that’s good advice. I am not normal. I’ll give you my MetPro recipe, take meat and drown it in spaghetti sauce. Done.

That’s Tom three meals a day.

If that works for you and you don’t get bored, that’s great. That’s what it is. You’ve got to work out what works for you and make it sustainable. That’s the big thing. It’s weird. I live on an island with 400-plus amazing restaurants because they’re all competing with each other. The old me would have gone with, “How much risotto can I have?” It’s funny I’m with coaching with Jess. In the beginning, it’d be, “Do I miss my snack this afternoon because I’m going out to dinner?” She said, “Ros, we’ve talked about this before. No. You got to eat it.”

My old mentality was to save those calories so I could have something. Now, when I go out and I’m looking on the menu like, “Where’s the grilled chicken, fish or kebabs?” It’s because I don’t want the plate of pasta. It does change your palette. It’s still in half of me but I was never a bad eater. My thing was quantities. I don’t think I had a sweet tooth but a sweeter tooth. I’m still catching on like what you’re coming on, Crystal, about your body image. I want to eat differently than I probably have for many years.

Congratulations. That’s very exciting. You mentioned you “got stuck” in Saint Martin. You weren’t planning on it. It was still a very difficult adjustment. Tell us a little bit about that and how you ended up splitting time between Seattle and Saint Martin.

We started visiting this gorgeous little island in probably 2009 and 2010. We used to come back here once every couple of years if we could. Everybody used to say, “Why don’t you go to Hawaii? That’s a lot closer to Seattle.” For whatever reason, the Caribbean was something we loved. We went to lots of different places. We had some timeshare, so we were able to go to different places. In 2019, it’s funny because you remember those moments. We saw a sign in the airport that said, “Isn’t it time you bought?” We both looked at this. We didn’t like the particular place they were advertising.

We were like, “Maybe we should think about it.” My husband is great with the property. He does things and fixes them up amazingly. He has done that quite regularly. That’s his thing. We started investigating. A longer story than I’ll go into, we found this property that had been substantially hurricane damaged. The actual building, which is a whole lot of apartments, some of them didn’t get damaged at all. Ours is in the top left corner and Irma went right past. We don’t know the reason why did they not have the shutters or have the windows up because it’s all about pressure with hurricanes.

 

If you don’t have an opening, it might have blown. Basically, we have no windows. Three years of salty air coming in, corrosion. The funny thing was the hideous red velvet furniture managed to survive the hurricane, even if the windows did not. We saw this place. When we first saw it and we went, “I don’t think so.” We went upstairs where there is a terrace and then it’s looking out at the Caribbean, “Maybe, I like this.” It was going to be a long project. He works part-time for my company. At that point, I’m going to an office every day. There is no way we could make this.

We would get there over time. Maybe come every so often and do a little bit of work. We first needed to get some windows in because it’s a little unlivable without the windows. He came down in January 2020. He was going back and forth a lot to Miami, getting material and stuff. They call it the bus, by the way, because it’s a two-hour flight to Miami. It was interesting in 2019 that we traveled quite a lot for various reasons. A friend had a birthday in Amsterdam and I had a school reunion in Australia. We ended up traveling a lot.

My way of handling things back then was to find a gym with my iPad and do a Peloton class if they had a spinning bike. For whatever reason, I couldn’t find a decent bike. I’m sure they are here but I couldn’t find one on the island. I couldn’t even clip into the bike properly at the gym. It didn’t have the right pedals. I was like, “Mike, I need a bike.” He said, “This is ridiculous.” I was only coming for two weeks in March. He said, “You need a bike for two weeks?” I was like, “I need a bike. It’s an investment in the future, longer-term.” He said, “We’re going to take years to do this place up. Are you serious?”

We got a second-hand bike because back then Peloton won’t deliver to the Caribbean. We managed to find one in Miami. I feel so sorry for this girl. We’re talking probably late January 2020. She said, “I got the bike but I prefer the gym. I think I’m going to sell my bike.” She could have sold that bike five times over, probably. She wants to get rid of it so we got the bike here. He still thinks I’m nuts.

He has been very supportive along the way. I joined him in March 2020. We all know what happened in March 2020. The world tipped upside down. Back then, we thought Seattle was the actual hub of everything. We now know COVID was probably around a lot more, but Seattle was where it came to the world’s attention for America. We said, “Can we stay maybe until April 2020? It would be over by then.”

We have this lovely girl who looks after our kitties when we’re not there. We don’t bring them when it’s only a two-week vacation. We say, “Jenny, can you stay until April?” She said, “No one is asking me to cat sit right now, so sure.” By April 2020, they were no flights. We’re now stuck. They had a couple of expatriate flights but they booked up so fast. Meanwhile, Mike was churning along and doing things up and re-cabling things. Once the windows were in, it wasn’t the nicest place to live but it was livable.

Thank heavens for that Peloton. My Tonal was back in Seattle. The funny story was that I was about to put it on pause because I couldn’t use it and suddenly, it logged in. I realized that the pet sitter had discovered the Tonal. She’s being a real trooper. Let’s leave it on. She used the Tonal for three months. My team all went remote. Remote working works. We ended up closing our office down and moving to a shared working facility that nobody wanted to be in. It’s all remote. I kept working. I learned how to manage the time zones and everything else. I had my Peloton here.

We changed our objective. It was like, “Let’s get this place finished.” We went back to Seattle for the summer, got ourselves all organized, and shipped the container and stuff down. We came back in October 2020 and stayed for another eight months. We went back again for the summer and back here until about March 2021. The last two times, we brought the cats with us.

That’s a big cat.

We have one of those huge cat wheels. We bought it for Ellie, the Maine Coon, who won’t even look at it at all, and the other one runs on it. I can send you a video of it. It’s quite funny. I sent it to you in Messenger, Crystal. You’ve got the little one running on the wheel. She runs on the wheel usually at 2:00 in the morning, which is great. Ellie is the big Main Coon. She learned to use FaceTime.

Not dialing in, she hasn’t got to that point, but the reason she is probably lurking is she sees people on the screen and she wants to be looking at you on the screen. I have a trainer. I do it once a week over FaceTime. It’s quite funny because I’ll sometimes hear this voice. She’s got me doing something. I’m not looking at the screen. Suddenly I hear, “Rosalyn, I see fur.” It’s Ellie staring at the screen.

We shouldn’t give your cat trouble for needing to lose weight because it also looks like whenever it’s a Maine Coon, they’re very big cats and furry. I’ve had a cat that I never proved was Maine Coon, but I thought it was Maine Coon. They are a big old puffball.

The vet has said 1.5 to 2 pounds would be nice. The problem is, in Seattle, she lives in a cupboard. Here, she lives under the bed. That’s it. She doesn’t do a lot more.

You can put her on FaceTime and make her chase the FaceTime around the house.

She would just watch.

You said she lived in a cupboard. I was picturing a cat Harry Potter.

She gets behind this cupboard and so much so, we put a camera in the cupboard to see if she is in the cupboard. It’s a cupboard that’s behind something else. She goes in there and she sits there all day, and comes out for dinner. Not so much here because it’s a little different, but she will run into her cupboard in Seattle and then the doorbell rings. She hears.

It’s like social anxiety.

They both traveled fine. I was such a worried mother. They’re both healthy and everything else, which is great. Ellie is nine. Katie is four. Katie is my foster fail. As Crystal knows, we foster kittens when we’re back in Seattle. Ellie still looks at Katie. Katie adores Ellie. Ellie looks at her like, “It’s been four years. Why is she still here? I don’t get it. All the others have left. Why is she still here?” She is my little foster fail. We joke. Ellie is my Mike’s cat and Katie is mine.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is DynamicRos. I’ve always had a lot of energy. Mental energy, we would say before Peloton. It might be the red hair, but you can say I’m animated and everything else. DynamicRos might have been somewhat aspirational. I put this name there and I’m like, “DynamicRos. I’m not very dynamic.” Now I think I live up to the name. I was lucky I got one of those names. I didn’t have to be Ros274.

 

That’s the benefit of joining way back when. Do you have a favorite instructor?

I have a few. For me, Jess King is the one that I go to. It’s not for this reason. She was the one who came up in the Bellevue Square store. Finding what motivates you is my big thing. For me, even when I’m like, “I don’t feel like working out today.” If I go find a ride with Jess, it will usually get me past that pretty quickly, although most will. It’s also great that I had that opportunity to meet so many of them. Going to that studio that first time, and I went another couple of times, got me part of that feeling of riding in the studio.

I know from so many of the people now, that’s something they haven’t experienced or may never experience. We don’t know what’s going to come there. The new studio is probably going to be different if it does ever open up. Jess was my first and my go-to, but I’ve done things like the Power Zone along the way. The Power Zone wasn’t motivating me. I’ve been the lead four times. The lead motivated me. I love the mathematics of Power Zone where my rides are mapped out for the week.

When it gets to the point of, “I’ve still got to get three rides in this week,” which are the required rides. Getting in the rides wasn’t the problem. It’s the required rides I didn’t want to do. I’ll never love 90-minute rides. I can do them. They’re not a problem for me physically but I’ve got to break it down. Get 10 or 15 in. I get down at 45. I can do 45. I may go back to the challenges one day. I have nothing against them. They’re wonderful if they keep you motivated.

A lot of people do them and get to that point because there is a certain time for everybody. Everybody is different but there is a certain moment where you get to and you miss what called you to Peloton in the first place. Whatever that was for you, you don’t get to do that anymore and you need to take a break.

Every ride would still do it for me once I did it, but it was getting me to go, “I’ve still got three rides to get mid-Saturday and I’ve got to do it by Monday.” It was stressful. It’s not meant to be stressful. If I name the ones that are my go-to favorites, I love Denis, Tunde, Kendall, and it’s all at different times. It depends on who you feel like. I was going to say to my husband, “Which one should I do?” I started naming the instructors and he has already got a number in his head and he’ll go, “Number four was Tunde,” whatever number I say in whatever order.

He’s like, “I like Bradley Rose. He’s hysterical. He reminds me of my time back in the UK. He is so typically English.” I love Leanne. I didn’t like Ben that much but Ben is doing Power Zone. He is quite interesting. It works for his style. He is not one of my all the time instructors, but I love his Ministry of Sound one. That ride was phenomenal. It’s finding what works. Just keep checking if it’s still working. I love Matt to do occasionally because he is so technical. His low-impact rides are great for reminding you of your posture and are you cycling correctly, and all of that, but he is not my go-to every day.

Do you have any advice for people who are entering the world of Peloton?

Whatever will motivate you and that will change. For me, that first motivation was my husband was not going to put the clothes on the Peloton.

That gets you to the next milestone.

For me, I don’t count the milestones and all the other kinds of Peloton. I do yoga and Pilates occasionally. Tonal, the milestone thing hasn’t caught on with me. I do my programs and I try and do it steadily. The milestones with the cycling, as you’ve probably seen, the funniest was when I said to Mike, “I want 1,000 in balloons.” He thought I said I wanted 1,000 balloons.

He was like, “Are you crazy?”

He was like, “This is going beyond the supportive husband to go buy 1,000 balloons.” We were back in Seattle but 1,000 balloons is a lot to buy. He looked at me and he said, “Honey, do you really want it?” I said, “It’s not that much to ask. It’s only four balloons.” That’s the thing with the milestone. You get the same 1,500, the next one will be 2,000. For me, you see the people who say, “Don’t count the five-minute rides.” I don’t care. I agree with Christine. Every time I get on that bike, that counts. If I do a five-minute cool-down, that’s another five minutes that I wouldn’t have done in the old me. I count the rides. The milestones are a big deal.

It’s funny because they’ve jumped 20 for me every 500, and once I get 2,000, it’s going to be 1,000. I’ve made my own one. You’ll see it, I have a 1,600, 1,700, 1,800 when I get there because I was like, “It’s too far. I want to count the 100.” Peloton says this and I didn’t think you realize it until you do it. That 100th ride is such a mind shift because it does mean you develop the pattern. I don’t care if it took you three years to do 100 or it took you two weeks. The 200, 500 and 1,000 are all important, but that 100 means you’ve made some consistent change to get to that 100. That would be my thing.

Keep evaluating what’s motivating you. As Power Zone for me, I still like the rides but the programs were not inspirational anymore. It was becoming a chore. I have nothing against them. They are awesome but for me, I needed other stuff. I’m motivated enough that I don’t need that program to make me do it, which when I first started Power Zone, the whole week was mapped out for me. I don’t even need to think about it. I’m going to get these 4 or 5 rides in. Keep evaluating what’s motivating you.

My struggle is getting enough sleep. I’m still dealing with this one. It’s not that I have trouble sleeping. It’s getting me into bed that’s the problem. I get my second wind at night and I can keep going. The husband crushes out because he has been doing renovation all day. If I wake up, I go, “Should I have another hour of sleep or should I workout?” He will always say workout. That’s his thing. He was saying, “Get up. Go do it.” Once I’m doing it, I’m fine. I know if I ask him that question, he’s going to say, “No, go workout.”

Of course, it’s up to me. I can still sleep in if I want to. It’s having that person who will remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. I have met many fabulous people through Peloton. Some of that was back during the studio days where you met them when they would do the HRIs. I’ve made friends along the way. One lady was posting about her cat had got very sick and I reached out to her. She was visiting Seattle. They were running a cruise to Alaska. This was years ago. We went out for dinner and stayed in touch. I’ve met some fabulous people through this community. You talk about this a lot. I don’t know how the competitors are necessarily going to catch up with that.

 

The people who have joined Peloton and created that community did that. Peloton certainly benefited from it but it’s the people. You can’t replace that. You can’t make that happen.

This was another motivation we had. For the first 1,000 rides, my husband would buy 100 shares every time I did 100. I was at about 600 to 700 when they went. We’ve got quite a chunk at a very low price and it stopped at 1,000. He was like, “That’s it. It’s going too high.” There were lots of discussions. I love John’s pace and everything else. They’re a strong company. I’m not a share analyst but I do think that they have to rethink this new paradigm where a lot of people join them who don’t know the studio from a long time before it was public.

There are things they are going to have to think about. On the other hand, I still personally believe there is so much going for them. My wonderful uncle, who’s the super-fit 70-year old, says that his to-be daughter-in-law, who lives in Sydney, has something competitive. It’s one I’ve never heard of. It’s not the dreaded one we don’t talk about. He said, “It’s cheaper and I’m going to go for that.” He went and tried it. He used to cycle on the road but he doesn’t anymore. He said, “I’m going to go try the Peloton.” They’ve opened up a store in Bondi Junction, which is in Sydney. I’m like, “That’ll give me a Peloton whenever I visit Australia.”

That’s a good win.

We keep our fingers crossed that he buys it.

Yes, we do.

Thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you on social media if you would like to be found.

It’s Facebook and Instagram for me. I’m not a Twitterer. For me, it’s going to be @RosalynArntzen on Facebook or @DynamicRos on Instagram.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it.

Thank you for taking time on your Sunday.

You take care of your kitties and enjoy your time there. Tell your husband thank you for all of his technical assistance.

—

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

It’s a highly anticipated interview with Brittany Allen, the fashion designer. I am excited about this and I’ve been dying to post it.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can also find me on Instagram, Twitter, the Bike, and the Tread all @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. Don’t forget our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, you can subscribe to that as well. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

Important Links:

• Rosalyn Arntzen – LinkedIn
• Peloton
• @RosalynArntzen – Facebook
• @DynamicRos – Instagram
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
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• Run, Lift and Live – Facebook group
• @RunLiftAndLive – Instagram
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• RunLiftAndLive.com
• www.Tonal.com
• Dr. Jenn Mann
• Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy
• Hump Day By Dr. Jenn
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• FightCamp
• MetPro.co/tco
• Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe
• Instagram – Clip Out Crystal
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• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Facebook.com/tomokeefe
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/RunLiftAndLive/permalink/4382265505230144/
• https://TheHustle.co/12032021-peloton-lululemon/
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/RunLiftAndLive/permalink/4382646425192052/
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/1010470345743027/search/?q=rexon
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CXCCcfOpm6Q/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.Shape.com/fitness/peloton-first-adaptive-training-consultant
• https://www.MensHealth.com/fitness/a38431854/crossfit-peloton-adaptive-instructor-logan-aldridge/
• https://www.Instagram.com/onepeloton/tv/CXMAfIMLUR_/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.Self.com/story/peloton-boxing-tips
• https://www.Instagram.com/onepeloton/p/CXBtWyctfKC/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.Instagram.com/reel/CXCXoiUt9Ns/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CXJSs_rFQ2s/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.TheManual.com/fitness/how-to-practice-mindfulness/
• https://www.LIHerald.com/elmont/premium/brandpoint//4-ways-to-kickstart-a-wellness-routine-according-to-health-experts,136773
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CXESI-ju5BQ/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CW_KisprA-w/?utm_medium=copy_link
• https://www.BostonGlobe.com/2021/12/02/magazine/he-never-lets-her-win-their-peloton-competitions-should-he/
• https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=rg0fZjc6EwY

About Rosalyn Arntzen

Dynamic operations and communications manager with 25 years of experience and history of enhancing revenues and improving systems. Demonstrated expertise in executive communications, software tools, project/program management, training programs and readiness delivery.

Innovative leader skilled in designing and delivering presentations to top executives and audiences of varying sizes (8 – 20,000). Proven success in international settings and in cultivation of client, partner, and supplier relations. Owner/manager of several companies as well as experience working for several large corporations.

Current company, Amaxra, is a Microsoft Certified Gold Solutions Partner and focusses on implement Microsoft technologies for customers of all sizes including Office 365, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft’s Office Business Intelligence solutions.