TCO 246 | Weight Loss

246: Peloton Studios are Set to Reopen plus our interview with Jeffrey Hutt

Last Updated: March 4, 2022By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 246 | Weight Loss

 

  • Peloton Prophet says the studios are reopening in the Fall.
  • Details on how many Guides have been produced.
  • Plus details on the rower – and why it was delayed and Homecoming.
  • John Mills joins us to discuss the exiting of more Peloton execs.
  • Peloton is helping those laid off find new work.
  • Bloomberg asks if Peloton should stop making equipment.
  • There’s a new warning for explicit language.
  • Dr. Jenn – When the holidays are over but the drinking isn’t.
  • Christine D’Ercole recognizes her cancer anniversary.
  • Selena Samuela is getting married in a few weeks.
  • Tunde talks to Shape about her morning routine.
  • Angelo has tips for losing fat without losing muscle.
  • Peloton’s new CEO sent a list of 10 leadership principles.
  • The Verge reviews the Tread.
  • We have new artist collaborations with Mary J. Blige and A Tribe Called Quest.
  • Becs Gentry has a “choose your own adventure” series.
  • Ross Rayburn is doing his first-ever Yoga program.
  • Denis Morton’s Fresh Fridays are back…now with Common.
  • Kendall has a Black History Month boxing class.
  • We have a past guest update from CJ Albertson.
  • Birthdays – Ross Rayburn (2/19), DJ John Michael (2/24)

All this plus our interview with Jeffrey Hutt!

—

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Peloton Studios are Set to Reopen plus our interview with Jeffrey Hutt

Happy belated Valentine’s Day. For the record, I did not forget. This isn’t the extent of your Valentine’s Day well-wishes.

I know that. Anybody who pays attention to what I post knows that too because I posted that we both got each other the same card.

We did get each other the same Valentine’s Day card or different cards but the joke is exactly the same.

It looks slightly different but they say the same thing. It’s hilarious.

That’s the sickeningly, sweet, cutey couple we are. I got you your fancy coffee maker.

I love it. I used it so many times already.

You got me the best of The Carol Burnett Show because I am 100 years old, but I wanted it. I’m not complaining except for the fact that I’m 100 years old.

I didn’t make you that old.

No, I was that old when you found me. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have a big old visit from the Peloton Prophet. I say that because there is a lot to cover.

It is an information dump of epic proportions from the Peloton Prophet.

I know you think you’ve already heard all the stuff and seen all the things but you haven’t. I’ve got new information. Also, we are going to be joined by John Mills and we’re going to be talking through some more layoffs that occurred. We’re going to be talking about some options for people that were laid off and some things to think about. We’re going to be talking about a new little thing that John found on the bike. Not to mention, there are a ton of instructor news as always. Angelo drops by. He has tips for losing fat without losing muscle if weight loss or losing fat is your goal. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn. She talks about when the holidays are over but the drinking isn’t. Also, there’s a bunch of stuff in the In Case You Missed It.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts. Wherever you find your podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave a review. That’s always helpful. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Lots of people are joining the group. That’s always nice to see.

I love all the new people. It’s fun.

Come on in, the water is fine. You can also watch these episodes on our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. I know we throw a lot of information at you in the course of the show. Perhaps you’re driving or on your commute and you don’t have a ways to go look it up because you got to keep your eyes on the road. You can get all the links and things like that sent to you in a nice easy format if you sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com. We will also be getting some new pictures up on our website soon because we had a fun photoshoot. We both look a little different because of our MetPro journey. I know some people get mad when we say that. I wanted to lose weight. I’m allowed to want to do that. It’s my body. I want it to be thinner.

I want to see my muscles, which I can’t do unless I lose the fat. That’s my goal and I’m doing it.

Those will be coming your way very soon. Now that we’ve done all that, let’s dig in, shall we?

We shall.

—

We have some breaking news. We are actually recording this after the stuff here coming later. It was discovered after we recorded that Peloton is starting a podcast.

After the initial, “What the F Peloton?” we came to some conclusions. We wanted to share this with you. One, the podcast is called Fitness Flipped. It’s going to come out twice a week. It’s going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tunde is going to be the host. She’s going to talk to people about fitness, but the other side of fitness like tips and things like that. On Thursdays, there’s going to be an interview. It is a Spotify exclusive. What does that mean? You can only get it on Spotify. That’s what a Spotify exclusive means.

They have been very aggressive about starting exclusive programming, most famously Joe Rogan. We’ll let you decide what you think about that. It is interesting timing. It makes me wonder if this has been in the can for a little bit, and they maybe took a beat because Joe Rogan and Spotify were generating a lot of negative press coverage. I wonder if they sat on this for a couple of weeks.

They’re continuing to sit on it because it’s already been taken down. I think we found this before they wanted it to be found. I will also point out to anyone who’s looking at the screen right now, it’s labeled as Peloton Studios. That’s interesting.

That’s significant because Peloton already has a Spotify profile for all their playlist and it’s just called Peloton. Peloton Studios would indicate that we can expect more Peloton podcasts.

We then started thinking, what would be the more? Here’s the theory. Everything that instructors do on IG Live right now as a regular show, we can look to see those turned into a Spotify exclusive podcast. For example, Couch on the Green with Kendall, I think it’s going to be a new Peloton Studios. The cooking show with Jess King and her fiance, that will be a new Peloton show. Potentially, there could be other things as well. Who knows? We’re at least going to see those three. I would not be surprised if there’s a Robin one also. Maybe about her mom’s series because she started a show on YouTube but she didn’t keep it up.

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Timing-wise, this has clearly been in the works for a while. There are a lot of people out there that don’t do podcasts, but it’s a tremendous amount of work. I suspect this has been in the works for months ever since Peloton has been working with Spotify. I think that this is a partnership. I think Peloton realized, “IG Live, why are we doing all this?”

“Why are we giving Instagram hours and hours a week of free content that they monetize when we could create our own content and monetize it?” They might or might not have ads in them, but I promise you Spotify is paying them to be a Spotify exclusive.

That’s the way it works. The whole reason that people go to Spotify exclusive is because they get paid for it. There is some partnership here that Peloton is getting something out of. You can be assured of that. I think Spotify wants in on it. Tom, you made a good point that Spotify’s whole process is to keep you engaged on the platform.

We should say too that the people who enjoy IG Lives are like, “I want the video.” The videos are coming because Spotify has been flirting with videos for a long time. Their goal is to allow podcasts to upload videos as well. Some are already being allowed to do it. If you’re bummed that if our theory is right and IG Lives are moving to Spotify, don’t be because videos will be there if Peloton wants to do it.

I think that they do because as we’ve talked about many times, the instructors are the product. If you’re going to do this and you’re going to pay for it, it is in Spotify’s best interest and it is in Peloton’s best interest to do that. Also, that means these are going to be short. This is not going to be like we do in our podcasts where it’s an hour and a half. Most people don’t want long episodes. I know we’re the exception, not the rule. You can expect that since instructors are driving this content, they do not want them to be.

They want you to engage with Peloton, but they also don’t want to create content that maybe gets you to engage with Peloton, but gets you to use the bike, the tread or whatever comes next less. That is something we recognized from the get-go. That’s why it’s called The Clip Out. You clip out because you’re done, then you can listen to us. This isn’t a new concept. If we can be so bold, we invented it.

We were the first to have a Peloton podcast. Nobody could take that away.

It’s interesting to see what this means long-term, but you’re going to see more of these. They are going to be probably more bite-sized at least compared to what we do.

I’m guessing twenty minutes. That’s what feels right. I think it’s going to be right about twenty minutes for each of these episodes.

I also don’t think it’s going to cover much of what we do. When we talk about a new artist series, I’m sure they will have something that mentions that. If you want to hear about the stock price taking a dump, you are not going to hear it there. If you want to hear about all the rumors of upcoming products, you are not going to hear it there. When an instructor whips his junk out, you are not going to hear it there. There are lots of things we cover that I don’t think they would ever touch.

For those of you who feel like, “I don’t know how I feel about this,” you’re not going to hurt our feelings by listening to this because at least Peloton came up with a different concept than what we do. They are not copying what we do to the exact degree like some others. You’re not going to hurt our feelings. You do what you got to do. It’s fine.

We talk about other podcasts all the time on here when instructors pop up on Ali On The Run. How many times have I pushed Decoder Ring or that wonderful Reel Spoilers?

To that point, I still think instructors are going to those other podcasts. That’s not changing. If you’re worried about that, I don’t think that’s going to change at all.

You still want to bring in new people, and the people that are listening to the Peloton podcast already had got a Peloton. If they want to sell more and they do, they are still going to pop up on all these other podcasts, just not ours.

I don’t think anybody needs to worry about this affecting The Clip Out. I don’t think it does anything bad to us. It’s going to live in its own world. We’ll live in our own world and there you go.

We’re available everywhere so there’s that.

We can be found anywhere podcasts are found.

Although just to be clear, if Spotify backs up a truckload of money or even a Kia Optima worth of money, I’d sell out in a heartbeat. I only have to create something to sell out.

I don’t see that happening.

We’re in no danger of that but just to be clear, in case it ever happens, people can’t call us a hypocrite, we would take the money.

We will keep you guys apprised as the situation continues to unfold.

—

We had a visit from the Peloton Prophet. He, she or they have tons of things to enlighten us with.

First of all, we now know for sure that the Homecoming for Peloton will be on May 13th, 2022. That is a big change because usually, it’s the first weekend in May. It’s interesting that they have moved it to the second weekend in May.

Do you think that’s significant? Do you think that means anything?

I don’t know because I’ve been hearing for a long time that the Rower release date was going to be May 13th. We then find out that the Peloton Homecoming is definitely going to be on that date. That’s interesting. We’ve also confirmed because Peloton had it up on their website very briefly that the Homecoming is going to be all virtual. We’ve been saying that too. Why would it not be virtual at this point when they have not opened the studio?

Come hang out on the sidewalk and stare in the windows.

They also had a note. It will be interesting to see if the note stays after Homecoming and the website comes up live for good. They have a note on there saying that the same Homecoming has an FAQ about this Fall saying that both the London and New York studios will be opening in the Fall. I will be curious if they keep that. I think that they will because we were reading that Disney is allowing people in now without masks if they have been vaccinated,

If you’ve been vaxxed, you no longer have to wear a mask in Disney World. Also, I don’t think they are making any effort to check to see if your vaxxed.

I know it’s Disney World, but the reason that’s relevant is they tend to have been the trendsetters when it comes to this. A lot of companies follow whatever they do. I am not going to be shocked if Peloton follows suit soon.

I think that is where the nation is headed right now collectively. It’s like, “Time to wrap it up.”

Here’s something that’s interesting. We know that the Guide is coming out in April 2022. We know it’s going to have the new heart rate monitor that Peloton put out. You are going to be able to ship it with it. Here’s the interesting thing you don’t know. They only created 250,000 of them. That’s all they have produced. Why?

Because that’s all that people were wanting.

It was a soft demand.

Maybe they should image it like, “Limited Edition.”

That would be cool. That might change in November. Between now and November, that’s the expectation. There’s no more that are going to be produced. That’s it, 250,000. That’s going to be interesting. Another thing, the Financial Times came out and the Peloton Prophet was filling in some blanks. The Financial Times said that the Rower is definitely coming, which we’ve been saying forever. That’s May 13th. We know that.

The thing is we’ve talked about it a million times and it’s been delayed. Now we know why it has been delayed. It’s because they had to scrap the handle controls, which was a huge major design. Apparently, there were issues with the Bluetooth. They ran into manufacturing issues because of that. They were pretty far along. It took them back quite a bit. Now there’s not going to be anything remote. I’m also hearing some amazing and very exciting things about this rower. I’m not allowed to elaborate but I am being told it’s going to be well worth the wait.

I would hope as long as they’ve been making people wait that it doesn’t come out and it looks like a Hydro. You would hope that they have something more going on there.

Back to Financial Times, when they released their article, they said that this is code-named Project Caesar. They said that they saw images indicating that there were going to be classes taught by instructors in the studio and on the water. We will see that. We know that employees have been testing the Rower in their homes. We also have Project Cobra, which is the rumored Tonal-like product. Financial Times says it’s not a rumor anymore. We know this is happening, so does the Peloton Prophet. They are on the same page about this. Here’s the interesting thing, “Designed to rival Tonal.” How? You’re going to be able to lift up to 200 pounds like Tonal but it’s going to be a platform.

TCO 246 | Weight Loss

 

John Mills has talked forever about the fact that there was a buying up of Go Arenas resources, and that is a platform device. The thought was when Peloton comes out with this, they are going to have a platform device. People have said that since it’s going to be Tonal-like, maybe there is going to be a platform one, then one that looks more traditionally like Tonal. No. We have information that there is one device. It is a platform device and it will have a cable pulley weight system like Tonal, but will not be able to hang on the wall. The good news is if you don’t have a place for it on the wall, this is going to be good for you. The bad news is you are not going to be able to do pull-down exercises like Tonal does, things like lap pull-downs. Anything you’re pulling down, there’s no way to do that on this project Cobra.

Let’s back up and maybe explain for those small number of people that don’t know what a platform device means.

It looks like a platform that you would stand on. Think of the shape of a palette that maybe a bunch of material comes in on into a loading dock. That’s just the shape. It’s not going to look like wood. It’s going to be made out of something different. I’m just giving the shape. There are pulleys that come out of it. That is where you are getting your resistance. They look like cables. You pull them up and you are going to be able to do things like bicep curls because it’s going to be able to adjust the weights on this platform device. That’s where it is like Tonal. You’re going to be able to change the weight load. I don’t know what that’s going to look like or what that mechanism is that’s going to change it. Is it going to be something you say? Is it going to be something you do? Is it going to have AI that changes it like Tonal? All of those are unknown right now.

You would then watch the classes on your television?

That’s another interesting thing.

For people who are watching on our YouTube channel, I pulled up the Go Arena website. Since we’re thinking it’s potentially similar to that because they acquired that. If you want to see what it looks like on our YouTube channel, you can see this.

The interesting thing is when you say, where are you going to see it? Go Arena doesn’t have a screen. You just do the workouts that you want to do. Peloton is going to have something you can follow along with. How? You got to have a Guide for this to work. They have not released that information yet but it’s clear. That’s going to be the expectation. If you’re wanting this platform device, you might as well go ahead and get that Guide because you’re going to need it.

If you want that, you probably should get the Guide. If they have produced a limited quantity because the demand is soft at the outset, if they put this thing out and people go crazy for it but you got to have a Guide too, they might run out of them.

Of course, it will look a little different than the Go Arena. This is just a basic idea of what we’re looking at. We’re talking 2023, 2024 before we see this. This is not something that’s imminent. It’s not something you’re going to see in the next few months. We’ve got some time on this.

Do you know if this uses electromagnets as Tonal does?

We don’t know and I’m not sure what specifically Peloton is doing. We don’t know any of that. It says it’s a cable pulley system. I am unclear about what that means at this time. There are people that described Tonal as a cable pulley system but it’s magnetic resistance. It’s electromagnetic weights. We do not know what this is going to look like yet. To recap because I feel like people tell me they don’t hear this stuff. We know that there’s going to be a device coming out. It’s called the Guide. We know that there is a device coming out that is a platform strength device, and you are going to need the Guide to be able to do that. You do not have to attach it to a wall. That is going to be late-2023 or early-2024. We know the Rower is going to be announced at Homecoming on May 13th, which will be a virtual event. Peloton is slated to open its studios in Fall 2022. Peloton Prophet was busy.

They’re making it up for the last time because we didn’t hear from the Peloton Prophet for quite some time.

It’s been a scary time in the Peloton Prophet’s world. Let’s just say that.

Finally, I guess this is going to be a Peloton Prophet thing but then it happened between the time they predicted it and the time we recorded. Lanebreak was pushed back. It was going to come out on the 17th and we’re starting to see it roll out.

It’s interesting because it’s per bike. I tested this with some people. I reached out to John and I said, “John, I’m hearing it’s rolling out. Go check your bike.” It wasn’t on John’s bike but it was on Erica’s bike. He logged into his bike with Erica’s account and it was there. It’s by account, not by equipment. You go to the section that says, “More rides.” It used to be the place where you would go to. It just said, “More,” and that’s where you got scenic rides from. Now it says, “More Rides.” When you go there, it’s one of the three options. There are just rides, scenic rides, and now there is Peloton Lanebreak. It has videos up on the screen and it’s showing you the basics of how it all works.

You have to do a disclaimer saying that this can be too intense, be careful, that kind of thing. You get to choose differing links of classes. Sometimes they are very short. The shortest is five minutes. There are as long as twenty minutes. They have different kinds of music with each one. Once you choose it, then you are able to keep going. They have different tasks that you need to do. You have to turn the resistance knob and move around to be able to go faster and reach those tasks or to be able to complete those tasks. I haven’t played it yet because we did the photoshoot and my bike is unplugged. I haven’t checked to see if we have it.

We had to move it upstairs.

Can I say thank you, Tonal? We would not have been able to move it upstairs by ourselves if it had not been for Tonal.

We still barely moved it upstairs. Now we’re scared to try to move it back down the stairs.

This is exciting. I’m hearing a lot of variety of responses to this, “I tested it. No big deal. I tested it, I didn’t like it.” You then hear on the other hand, “I loved it. It’s so much fun. It keeps me totally distracted from what I’m doing and I have fun with it.” I think this is going to be good. It’s going to keep people engaged in a whole different way.

It will keep a different type of person engaged. The fact that some people don’t like it, yeah. Some people don’t like the Alanis Morissette class because they don’t want to listen to Alanis Morissette. I picked her at random. I’m not picking on her. Don’t get mad at me. Not everything is going to be for everybody and that’s okay. This is so very different from just another music artist class. It’s totally different from what they’ve done in the past which is great.

Some people are asking questions like, “I wonder if DJ John Michael is the one that mixed all these?”I haven’t heard the answer to that yet. Peloton hasn’t officially come out and said, “It’s here.” I think that’s because they are trying to quietly roll it out. If anybody has been paying attention over the last couple of years, it takes a long time to push out this because it’s so many users. You can’t just be like, “Here you go.” It takes a long time. If you don’t get it in the next couple of days, don’t worry. You don’t have to restart your bike. People are saying that if you restart your bike, it magically appears. That’s not going to do it. For those of you that get it, try it. Let us know.

There should be a cool overlay like some sort of Tron promotion because it was very Tron-like.

A lot of people have mentioned similarities to Tron and it would be cool if they did that. It’s too bad Tron is not coming out with a new movie like a new version of Tron.

They do have the Tron ride that they are building.

You would think with Disney, they would be able to make something happen there. They have been all up in the Disney business lately. You never know. Peloton marketing, get on it.

They never did go with my sexy filter idea. Maybe they will have to go with my Tron idea.

We’ve got a lot of jokesters in our group. Somebody was joking about how your sexy filter idea was that beach ride or whatever it was.

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That was Eric Goodman. While you’re talking about Disney stuff, they could do a cool Jungle Cruise thing with the Rower. I’m available, Peloton.

I don’t think they’re hiring right now. Maybe you don’t want to be hired right now.

That’s fair.

—

Joining us once again is John Mills. How is it going, John?

How is it going?

I guess let’s jump in. These are remnants of the last episode. I’m sorry to pull you back in. We had a few more executives exiting the company from operations and the supply chain.

I wasn’t too surprised to see this because of John’s message about the layoffs. When he sent out the letter, he was like, “The layoffs today and in the coming weeks.” When I have worked at places that unfortunately have had to downsize, it’s typically the lower levels of people that get let go first and then the manager stay on to manage that exit, then some of those go as well. I don’t mean to say that like it’s no big deal. It’s a huge deal for all these people.

It’s not indicative of something like they fired people and then they were like, “It wasn’t enough, fire more.” There’s a little bit of a phase as you go through it.

Particularly in these two areas, they were the hardest hit from a layoff perspective. It was something like 1,800 people from the logistics operations that got let go, and several locations close to. It makes sense to me that some executives would go.

It made sense to me as well. When you go to the Peloton website and you look at the team, it has shrunk like the C level. Some of those people that were on the previous list on that page may still be employed, but they have clearly changed the optics of what is displayed there on the team page. It’s now a smaller list.

I agree with that, John. I was looking at that. Something bothered me about that. Somebody on your page mentioned Dara and I got to look at it. Everyone listed on that page is a Chief Executive or something of that level, except for one person. There was a Senior VP People Leader that was listed, but then the other Senior VPs aren’t. What is that about?

That’s the question that was on my page as well, and Dara’s name came up. They’re like, “Dara should be here.” My understanding is she was on the board as well. Her missing raised some eyebrows. I think she’s still there but she’s not listed in that condensed list so questions were raised.

For a company like Peloton, your head of marketing should be integral to what you do.

I can understand them having a Chief of Marketing listed, but why have a People Leader person up there at Senior VP level and not have a Marketing Senior VP level up there? That’s the part that was confusing to me. Maybe they don’t have a C level for their human resources. Maybe that’s why. Maybe SVP is as high as it goes. Maybe that’s the answer.

Maybe there’s a clear explanation. A couple of people in my group asked that very same question. I don’t know what that’s all about. As it relates to this article, it aligned because the folks that had left in that article were also C level employees. We see this condensed list and then we see an additional three C level folks that moved on, which is why I posted about it to ask those questions.

It made sense that one was relative to logistics. Another one had something relative to customer service in their title. There were things in there that aligned to where Peloton had struggles. I wasn’t questioning that. It was that three C level people that weren’t announced in the regular cadence when they announced these layoffs, then we get them a few days later, then the condensed list on the page, and then you’re looking for Dara. That combined a story.

Especially since it is a few weeks. It’s only been a few days. When you start talking about a few weeks, I checked Dara’s LinkedIn and Instagram. She’s still listed as Peloton. At the same time, when you hear a few weeks, you got to wonder, is there more to come? It’s also your point like, are we done seeing these things? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s still more to come just because they change that page so dramatically and he said a few weeks. He didn’t say a few days.

Hopefully, we see Dara put up in that list of nine people.

At least we know she’s still around.

It certainly seems like a position that’s worthy of being on that page.

She’s done some very high-level things for Peloton. If nothing else, because of that, I’m surprised she’s not on there. They also don’t show all the board members anymore. John Foley is listed but he’s got the chief position. That makes sense but you’re not seeing William Lynch and some of the other board members. That’s interesting as well.

You can see them. You get to scroll down to the section just for board members.

I meant in that original thing. Before, they had them all listed in one place and now it’s very sectioned off. That’s a good point.

I get the optics if there are people that aren’t on there. You’re trying to show your thinner and leaner. I get it but it raises some questions.

You want the company to be leaner but you also want them to have a marketing department.

We know they still have a marketing department. Is Dara still leading it? That’s the big question. We do have some good news. There are a lot of different options out there for people that were laid off by Peloton. Specifically, we heard one from one of our fellow writers, Wendy. She works for a company. They have a talent team called Blue Owl. They are a go-to resource for college students that are navigating their internships and their first job search. At the moment, they are expanding.

They are looking to connect with people who have strong sales backgrounds, recruiters, HR, project, staff, operation staff. They are specifically looking for people who left Peloton or who are no longer at Peloton. Those with great writing skills and communication such as personal brand specialists. They are looking to launch a national sales team. Hopefully, there are some people out there that this can appeal to you at the Blue Owl team. You can reach out directly to Melissa at Melissa@HelloBlueOwl.com or Matt@HelloBlueOwl.com. The company website is HelloBlueOwl.com. This is not an ad. This is us doing something to hopefully connect people. It’s a small thing that we can do.

I love that. I love this element of community in general. There’s some real magic to this. Immediately as it was announced, you have people in my little teeny group going, “We got some roles at my job. We got some roles over here.” There are people in there saying, “I got laid off.” I then see that happening on Twitter. The community is unbelievable.

Peloton has put together an amazing staff and they blew out a lot of people. It wasn’t the fault of the staff at all. If you are hiring people and you can poach somebody that was working at that level, that’s a gift.

Speaking of which, Tonal is going to be opening their New York studio and they’re looking for people.

Moving along. there was an interesting article in Bloomberg, should peloton abandon hardware entirely and become the Android of fitness?

No. It’s like a convenience store. It lays out that Apple is a closed-door OS and that’s locked down to their hardware. Android is open and then they have all these hardware makers. They construct the OS the way they want it. Peloton has the best content. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to abandon that Apple model and go to the Android model? It seemed like a very convenient storyline.

TCO 246 | Weight Loss

 

The reason that I focused on it was simply because it was different. I’m so tired of seeing the same crap in eighteen million outlets. At least they had a different hook.

As I’m reading through it, that’s not a crazy idea. I get the idea of if you could get buy-in from other manufacturers, now you could be on any bike. The subscription is where they are going to make the real money long-term if you can be on any bike that’s out there.

How would you get around things like resistance? I don’t even know how you do that, and even two different treadmills. They are different. Everything is different. I don’t know how you do that.

You also run the risk of I could see a manufacturer being like, “We will do this,” then they see how many people are signing up and using Peloton on their platform. All of a sudden, they are going to be like, “I want that money for myself.” They are either going to want a bigger cut or they are going to kick them off. Now those people have their bikes, then what are they going to do?

They also use a scenario here talking about the hardware margins. I don’t remember the time period but they said the hardware margins were like 6%. I’m sure they were during some quarter, but that’s not the historical margins with hardware. I thought that was closer to 30% generally. They are trying to set a narrative in this. What’s funny is I took it almost as a diss. At the end of the article, they are praising Apple and you’re telling them to go the Android route.

Articles are written so badly these days. I don’t even know that was on purpose.

Here’s what I think has happened. Somebody was like, “I like your article. Add something about Apple at the end for SEO.”

That’s probably what it was. You also found something else, John.

I was going to my bike like I always do to take one of my nephew’s classes. I’m inconspicuous. I walk in there. There’s no hoopla anymore. It’s not like the old John and there are cameras and video. It’s none of that. I’m just going in there to take a ride with my nephew. That’s it. I click the class and I get this thing, “This class might use some explicit language. Are you sure?” I’ve been taking the same car for six years? Yeah, I’m sure. I immediately hit the, “Don’t show me that ever again.”

I love how you say, “Ever,” because it doesn’t say that. It just says, “Don’t show this again.”

That was my version of the dialog box.

I wonder if they had got some complaints behind the scenes.

I guess there are enough people that are upset by it. If you can already filter it, why do you need this? I don’t care that people have it. I’m never going to use it. I’m the same as you, John. I’m going to click that box. If you’re filtering on those and you never want to see them, why do we need that warning too? I’m confused by that.

I’m assuming because the filtering is on-demand classes, whereas this pops up in live classes. You may not know it if you’re going to the live class. In my group, they were arguing that too. They’re like, “You know who might play explicit lyrics and who might not, just go to that instructor.” They were still debating. There are other people going, “That dialog box is great because that makes me click it faster. That’s what I want.”

On that note, we will bid you adieu. Until next time, where can people find you?

They can 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, or they can find me at RunLiftAndLive.com.

—

Joining us once 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, or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She has written four best-selling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn.

It’s great to be here.

Thank you. We are so glad to have you here. Marion has a question for you. She is having an issue with alcohol. Generally, she’s fine but for some reason, this post-Christmas and New Year season is proving problematic. Help.

You are not alone. I have to say since COVID has hit, I see more people struggling with alcohol than I have seen in a very long time. We are all under a lot of stress. A lot of people are still working from home. Some are doing it happily. Others, not so much. There is a lot of stress regarding the lockdowns, masks, politics, and all that sort of stuff. Also, many people have lost people close to them to this virus. We’re all under a lot of stress. It’s great that you have an awareness that this is a problem. I am a big believer in not drinking. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be an alcoholic, you feel like you are someone who let it run away from you.

I believe that we are in a culture that encourages us to not be connected with our feelings, not be present with our loved ones, and to numb ourselves. Alcohol is at the top of that list. We’re all better off without it. There are some interesting studies that have come out linking even one glass of alcohol to cancer. It’s great that you are aware that this is causing you problems. It’s important to talk to your doctor if you’re going to stop or if you’re going to slow down. One thing that a lot of people don’t realize is if you’re drinking excessively, going cold turkey can be lethal. You want to work with your doctor to make sure that you do it in a smart and healthy way.

Part of your job is going to be to figure out, are you someone who is better off not drinking at all? Are you someone who can drink moderately? If you are someone who can drink moderately, what does that look like? It may mean, for a while, not drinking at all so that you can reconnect with yourself. Typically, what happens is when we start drinking excessively, we developed a lot of rituals around it, “At the end of the day, I finished my work and now I’m going to pour myself a glass. I’m going to sit in front of the fireplace. I’m going to talk with my girlfriend on the phone,” or whatever it is. We link the behavior with the drinking. It becomes hard to do the behavior. Many of those are things that we enjoy doing without doing the alcohol part.

You want to start to pull those apart and not drinking for a while can be helpful in unlinking those associations. You also want to create some new associations. One of the things I recommend doing is creating a self-care list. In my No More Diets app, I have 150 things on the self-care list. I recommend that everybody have a living list of self-care activities that helps them, and that you’re constantly changing the order of it, putting it where you can see it, adding to it, taking things off if you discover something that used to work ten years ago that doesn’t work now. You don’t want to just stop drinking and not replace it with anything. You want to start to replace it with things that are healthy, whether it is a Peloton meditation, a relaxing yoga class like the Shavasana class, watching your favorite show, going for a walk, talking with a friend or whatever it is. You want to come up with a list of 100 things ongoing that you can do that are great escapes and good self-care for yourself.

Peloton can be used psychologically too. It can be used to just clear your mind of any negative thoughts. Share on X

One other thing that I want to add is if you do feel like you have a serious problem with alcohol or you can’t stop, or you try to stop and you repeatedly are unable to, then it’s time for AA. I’m a big fan of 12-Step programs. AA is such a great program. I liked for even people who aren’t alcoholics to try attending a meeting here and there because you learn so much. It is such a fantastic program. It’s not just a program about alcohol. It’s a program about knowing how to make amends. It’s about being in touch with spirituality and being of service to others. There are a lot of great messages that are helpful for all of us.

It’s funny that you say that because all I can think about is oddly enough Jersey Shore because Mike The Situation is in recovery. He’s always saying things like those aphorisms that you hear in a 12-Step program. He’s very vocal and supportive of them. He’s a fan of them and found them super helpful. He says all these little things all the time that I’m like, “That’s pretty good.”

They apply to so many.

It’s not just about addiction.

I have the serenity prayer by my bed in my office, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That is something I remind myself about on a daily basis.

I know the one he says all the time. It’s something Peloton instructors probably say too. It’s the one where he said, “We didn’t come this far just to get this far.” I’m like, “I like that.” Thank you very much for that wonderful advice. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on social media @DrJennMann, especially Instagram. I post all of my Peloton workouts on my Insta Stories. You can also find my weekly column, Hump Day With Dr. Jenn at InStyle Magazine.

—

Christine D’Ercole is celebrating the first anniversary of her squamous cell carcinoma removal.

I’m not familiar with that many cancer words, but I know that it’s skin cancer and it got removed in 2021. Congrats to Christine. That is amazing.

She has a special ride to commemorate that.

That’s the 45-minute Power Zone Max. That seems appropriate, hard things for tough people.

Selena Samuela is super close to getting married.

I didn’t realize it was getting this close. Some instructors have that week-long thing. We just knew she was getting married. She was so excited when she got engaged but I haven’t heard any of the other details. Maybe I haven’t been watching close enough. Maybe everybody else already knows. She posted, “It’s a few weeks, how exciting.” I’m so excited for her. She looks so happy.

Shape magazine talks to Tunde about her morning routine.

Michelle K is back. She got lots of great details from Tunde’s morning routine. Everybody knows that Tunde has some of the best skin and makeup around. You can learn some of those details, as well as other things that she gets up in the morning and takes care of right away. Great article as always, Michelle.

—

Joining us once again is Angelo for MetPro. You send us nutritional questions and then he answers them. Here we go.

Thanks for having me back.

We’re glad you’re back. We have a question from Samantha Jones. She thinks she has a dumb question but I don’t think it’s dumb. A lot of people struggle with this. She says, “How do you lose fat and not muscles?” She knows she’s not the type to meal prep or follow a diet, therefore she is not going to sign up for MetPro until she gets her crap together. Her words, not mine.

What I hear is, “I’m not going to sign up for that until I don’t need it.”

Let’s see if we can help Samantha get off the ground. What you want to lose are fats and not muscles. There are a few checkboxes that we’re going to need along the way. The first thing is all the studies have shown and all my practical experience, I’ve dieted over 20,000 people. I can tell that it’s true that when you use your muscle, your body prioritizes that. You would have to go to college for a decade to learn all the science behind the chemical and biological pathways, but your body is able to adapt. The number one thing that you can do to see to it that as you are losing weight, you are not also wasting muscle is using your muscle. It means you have to be doing some type-two muscle fiber training and some conditioning that is telling your body, “This is a valuable resource. Let’s not waste it.” That’s the number one thing.

The second thing is we need to optimize the nutrition around that. You want to lose weight, which means you have to be in some form of a negative calorie balance. There are a few scenarios that predispose you to muscle wasting. The first one is going an extended period of time without eating. I know that cyclical or intermittent fasting is a big thing right now. A lot of people are doing mindful eating. There are a lot of different strategies out there. This is neither good nor bad. If somebody is trying to preserve muscle, you want to give yourself small fuel throughout the day especially if you are losing weight, and your priority is maintaining lean muscle mass.

For example, instead of waking up and not eating anything until 12:00 to 1:00 in the afternoon, you may want to have a high protein breakfast. Have something in the morning that’s going to give your body the ingredients to not immediately go after the extra protein. When you’re doing aerobic activities or any exercise for that matter, but predominantly aerobic activity, you’re going to use three branched chain amino acids, isoleucine, valine and leucine, in a greater degree than all the other branched chain amino acids that make up a complete protein, which your body uses to build and maintain muscle.

Therefore, when you’re in a negative calorie balance and you are doing aerobic activities, you can end up in a scenario where your protein profile is incomplete. That’s what we want to avoid. In the situation where you’re losing weight, you want to make sure your meals all have a little bit of protein each. You want to eat a little bit more frequently. The first thing is you want to remind your body that your muscle is important by using the muscle, stimulating muscle fibers. That means some sort of weightlifting or resistance training. You can use weights, bands, cables, Tonal or anything to create resistance strain on your muscles and load them. That will help trigger muscle preservation. Those are a few little nuanced details that will help you, Samantha.

TCO 246 | Weight Loss

 

Those were very good ideas. I like how you threw in the Tonal there.

You have a client who’s having success there.

I have a couple of clients.

Thank you so much for all of that. If people would like tailored nutritional advice for themselves to help them on their fitness journey, where can they find you?

MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you.

—

Inc.com has an article about how Peloton’s new CEO sent employees a list of ten leadership principles.

For people who haven’t gotten a chance to check this out, it was in his first email that came out that was leaked everywhere. A lot of people have already seen this and a lot of people took issue with the tone of this. I personally did not. I liked the list, “Be stubborn on vision, flexible in details, Fast is as slow as we go, Intuition drives testing, data drives decision-making.” That’s one of my favorites. I am a data person so I love that. “Your comfort zone is your own worst enemy, Talent density is foundational, Stress context not control, freedom and responsibility, Understand in order to be understood, Get real, Think from first principles, Put first things first.” I think it’s a good list.

I don’t know that people had a specific issue with this list. It was just the tone of the email. I personally didn’t. I think that he’s a person who is blunt and he says what he thinks. That is the key to my trust, is to say what you think even when I don’t agree with you. That doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk.

Also, The Verge had a review of the tread.

It’s the “Peloton tread review: The best treadmill by the most volatile company.” Lots and lots of people had issues with that. The fact that they are calling Peloton volatile.

They are having a moment but if you drill down on companies that might not be here in four years, Peloton is not one of them.

The interesting thing was it was all pros. It was like, “It’s expensive. Their belts thunk at high speeds.” That’s a known issue. People who have experienced that said that it goes away after they start using it. You use it a couple of times and it goes away. They also said, “The bad stuff, Peloton’s whole deal right now.” Excellent writing

It’s the things that don’t affect your user experience in any way, shape or form.

To be devil’s advocate, Tom, it could affect you if the company went under, but it won’t. It was all positive stuff that this person had to say. I think that comes back to SEO once again. They had to find a spin on it so they did.

—

We have two artists collaborations and we had some shuffling in honor of the Super Bowl.

Originally, A Tribe Called Quest was slated on the docket. It’s supposed to start sometime the week of 2/15. All of a sudden, after the Super Bowl, it was like, “We’re just kidding. Mary J. Blige is up next.” She will be starting on the 16th. Either way, A Tribe Called Quest is going to be up on the 23rd. They didn’t go away. They are going to be pushed back a little bit. For an added bonus, there is A Tribe Called Quest Peloton apparel in the store. You can go out there and get it. There’s no without sleeves for John Mills. Whatever he buys, he’s going to have to cut the sleeves off. It’s going to get crazy. It’s super fun and has lots of good collaborations.

Becs Gentry is teaching a “Choose your own adventure” series.

In February, during her 30-minute pop rides, she teaches simultaneously, tempo run, endurance run, progression run, and intervals run. You can choose any of the four and follow along. She is so good at it. The multitasking that is happening here makes my project management hearts so happy. She does it so smoothly and naturally because she’s also telling stories. The idea of this is it’s different themes each week. She’s talking about the theme and then she’s telling people to change their speeds and change their paces. It goes by so fast, but it’s something totally different from what anybody else is teaching. If you’re looking for something fresh, this is it. It’s pure Becs. It’s exactly what she does.

She puts out these gems of encouragement but she’s very real. The week that I was listening, she told stories about how her parents met. Apparently, their love story was not an easy love story. They were both in marriages when they met. As Becs said, it’s the greatest love story that she’s ever heard. She talked about that and her relationship with her partner. It’s an amazing class and it went so fast, 30 minutes felt like a snap. I didn’t even feel like I was running. It was crazy.

Kendall has a Black History Month block party for you.

There’s been several of these classes, but I wanted to bring everybody’s attention to the fact that it’s a boxing class because there are not that many of these yet. Check it out because it happens Friday and that will be a fun way to wrap up the week.

While we’re covering things you might have missed, Ross Rayburn is doing his first-ever yoga program.

It’s going to be power restorative. You’re going to be able to get the restoration benefits but it’s still a class where you’re moving. Restoration classes are wonderful but you don’t move. You’re getting the flow and the restoration, but you’re also getting the movement piece of it. That’s going to be cool. Definitely check that out.

In Peloton, you don't have to go at the pace that the instructor sets. Just enjoy it. Share on X

Finally, Denis Morton has something for people.

His Fresh Friday classes are back and the artist Common helped him co-curate a list for an upcoming class of Fresh Fridays. How exciting.

—

CJ Albertson, you might remember him. He’s our past guest. He was leading the Boston Marathon 2021 by 20 miles. Everybody was going crazy. He was featured on SlowTwitch.com talking about his preparations to return to Boston Marathon 2022.

He’s coming back on April 18th, 2022. He is ramping up his training for that. He runs every day. He uses Peloton and he interacts with people on Instagram. He’s a great guy. He just had a baby too. Reach out to him, give him support and cheer him on.

It will be interesting to see because he did so well but maybe came out a little hot.

It was his first time doing one

It makes you wonder like now that he’s got that under his belt and he’s had a year to train, what is he going to do now?

I don’t think it’s been a year. Didn’t they move it because of COVID? I do think it’s his second try. It all got messed up because of COVID, date-wise.

—

We have two birthdays, the aforementioned Ross Rayburn on February 19th and DJ John Michael on February 24th.

Happy birthday to both. If you get a chance, go out and tell them. They will be very excited to hear you say that.

—

Joining us is Jeff Hutt. How is it going, Jeff?

How are you, Tom?

I’m good.

It’s great to have you here, Jeff. We were talking before the interview, and you mentioned that you have had a weight-loss journey that you have been on. Can you tell us about that?

Back in 2017, after my annual physical, as my doctor did every time, he says, “You need to lose some weight.” I was about 220 pounds, which is not terribly bad. I used to be 6’2”. I’m down to 6’1” now. I think I’m shrinking. I would go from having half a bagel for breakfast and cutting back a little. I would lose 5 pounds, and then I would immediately gain it back. I got a phone call from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and they said that my doctor had recommended me for a weight-loss study they were doing.

When you find out you were recommended for a weight-loss study, let’s unpack that. Where you like, “This will be fun,” or where you like, “You son of a b**ch?”

I needed to lose weight. I had cholesterol and blood pressure problems. I figured it couldn’t be bad.

What was the nature of your weight-loss study? I did one.

He told me offline that his was not quite as invasive as yours. I can’t wait to know this.

What did they have you do?

They called me up and said, “What we want you to do is download this app so you can track your calories. We want you to eat 1,800 calories a day.” I said, “I’m going starve to death.” They said, “You can do it.” They put me in touch with a nutritionist. I said, “How do I survive on 1,800 calories a day?” They said, “The first thing is you want to have a protein with every meal.”

I said, “I have high cholesterol. I don’t eat eggs usually.” They said, “You can have one egg.” I said, “What will I do for the rest of the week?” They said, “Cottage cheese and yogurt are good.” I said, “I don’t eat those things. Bagels?” They said, “No, you want to cut back on the carbs.” I got accustomed to eating one egg a day and then half an English muffin. I developed a technique in the microwave where I could cook it for 35 seconds and have breakfast. I got used to some low-fat yogurt on an alternate day.

Breakfast wasn’t a big thing with me. I normally didn’t eat lunch. If I ate lunch, I ate at my desk at work. It became a slice of cheese on a piece of matzo and an apple. Apple is the secret to weight loss because there’s something in the acid in the apples that helps burn fat. From breakfast and lunch, I’m at 300 calories. Now I’ve got 1,200 calories for dinner. What I did was I went shopping with my wife. We came home and I cut all my normal portions in half because they made a point that nobody really knows how much they were eating.

For the first couple of weeks, I weighed everything and tried to learn what a portion or size was. They say 3 ounces of meat will fit in the palm of your hand, but it all depends on how big your hand is. Lo and behold, the first month, I lost 10 pounds. I said, “This is amazing.” I kept going and logging. I kept on the same diet. I had wonderful dinners. I just ate less. I went four months in a row and lost 40 pounds.

It’s fascinating that you can keep at that pace. Normally, you’ll plateau over time. You were like a machine with ten a month.

I called up the study people and I said, “I’m 180 pounds. People are telling me I look gaunt.” They said, “Cut it back to 1,200 a day.” At that point, I called my doctor. I said, “I reached where I want to be.” I was 185 pounds when I graduated high school. They gave us a PowerPoint presentation to watch every week. One of the things was how to eat out because eating out is a big problem. The portions that they serve in restaurants would normally feed a third-world country.

A couple of hints were to stay away from fried foods and substitute something else for the French fries. I cut my beer consumption back to a single beer instead of three. Instead of half a pizza, I would have maybe 2 or 3 slices. I learned that you could ask the restaurant that, instead of putting fried fish in the taco to make it broil, grilled or something. That worked. A year goes by and I’m still at the same 180 pounds. I feel much better without carrying that extra 40 pounds around. I never go to the mall. Other than the supermarket, I don’t shop at all, except for one store. I go to the Apple Store.

In the Fall of 2017, I went to the Apple Store because I was getting a new Apple Watch or something. Four doors down is the Peloton store. I had seen an ad for Peloton. I had an old-style exercise bike. My sport is skiing. I’ve been skiing since I was in high school, and I was a ski instructor all through college. Everything I do is to keep myself going on for skiing. I walked into the Peloton store. They gave me a pair of shoes and I sat on the bike for two minutes. They explained all the features on the screen. I said, “No big deal.” I have never taken a spin class in my life. I thought that spinning sounded like the dumbest way of exercising that I can imagine.

Was it the bike and how it looked? Was it the store that called to you? If you thought spinning was dumb, why did you even walk in there?

I like toys. I’m a big gadget guy. It’s electronic and computerized. I like that stuff. I’m an early adapter. I walked out of there and I wasn’t interested. My salesperson started emailing me. “What did you think of the bike?” She said, “Why don’t you come into the showroom and take a class?” She says, “Bring a water bottle and a towel because you’re going to need it.”

I went in and they said, “What kind of music do you like?” I said, “Oldies.” They put me on a 30-minute ’60s ride. At the end of the ride, I was exhausted and dripping with sweat. I said to myself, “This is what cardio exercise is all about.” I still wasn’t ready to commit. I went home and downloaded the app onto my iPad. I got on my old bike and took some classes. I said, “This doesn’t translate well.” I called and ordered the bike. It will be my fourth anniversary with the bike at the end of January 2022. I am at 1,200 somewhat rides and 3,000 classes. I love it. I drank the Kool-Aid.

How has that worked with your weight-loss journey? Does it enable you to have more calories, or have you lost more weight or somewhere in between?

I was able to increase my calorie content. I do work out more frequently since COVID. I’ve also retired in February of 2020, and then COVID hit in March of 2020. The timing worked out. Before that, I learned that it had a psychological effect. My nephew was going to school in St. Louis. He’s at Washington University. It was 2019. I was planning on coming out to St. Louis to visit him. I said, “Who else do I know in St. Louis?” I got in touch with Crystal. I said, “Could we get together? I would love to meet you guys.”

Tom, you were working that night. My wife and I were going to hook up with Crystal. Unfortunately, my mother, who was 89 at the time, was rehearsing for a musical show. She was in her theater group down there. She fell and broke her hip. I flew down to Florida and spent a number of weeks down there with her. I was going crazy. I was using the app to walk outside but the stress was so high. I finally got on the phone. I called the nearest showroom. I said, “I’m coming over to ride to clear my mind.”

I went to the showroom in Boca and took a 30-minute ride. I felt much better. My mother recovered. Unfortunately, COVID got her. Every time I have a mindfulness ride, they put up a disclaimer on the screen before the ride starts that this is not official medical advice. With COVID and everything and being stuck in the house for a year and now, it looks like we’re getting stuck back in again, I do find that the bike was a huge help. I’ve tried doing boxing now, which is great. I always do stretching after my rides. I did foam rolling and power bands.

Here’s the other thing about the Peloton that worked with me. In my office building, we have a gym. I went there three times a year. All I had to do was stand up from my desk, walk downstairs, and walk into the gym. I never went there. I don’t like it. Now, I got to wake up, get out of bed, get on the bike, ride, do a strength class and stretch. I’m filling in some of the other things. I wish I had more time. I would love to get into the yoga classes.

You could substitute one of those foam rolling for yoga twice a week.

The other thing that I got hooked on was Power Zone. When I first started riding, I got on the bike and if I stood up, my heart rate went through the roof. Now, that doesn’t happen, so that’s good. I took a bunch of the heart rate zone classes that they had before they get away with them. I got involved with the Power Zone group. I understand the logic of Power Zone training and why it’s good. I see the improvements that I make with it, but they don’t play the music that I like. It’s hard to find it in all these Power Zone classes. They had the ’80s one. That was great. I could take a 90-minute ride with Matt Wilpers and not recognize a single song.

It’s keeping you young. You got to look at it like that. It sounds like your mother did a great job of modeling staying active in retirement that she was in a musical at 89.

She would still be dancing her heart out if not for COVID.

That’s great that she would do stuff like that and stay involved. It’s so easy to fall into your own world.

How are you navigating being retired? It sounds like you have a routine you’re doing every day. I know from my own parents being retired that even when you have a routine, especially with COVID, it keeps you from going out of your house, so it’s easy to sit. Are you keeping active?

It’s snowing here in the Northeast. The ski areas don’t have much snow yet. I’m looking forward to getting back on the slopes. We have a vacation home up in New Hampshire. Whenever I left here to go to New Hampshire, I used the app on the TV, so I could do strength classes. I could do whatever I wanted to do, but I couldn’t ride. When I started to get involved with the Power Zone challenges, I would be in the middle of a challenge. I do two days here, and now I’m heading up to New Hampshire, and there’s no bike there. I’ve got to get two more rides in by the end of the week. I finally broke down and ordered a second bike.

As soon as you mentioned the home in New Hampshire, I’m like, “Second bike. I see where this is going.” I was surprised you didn’t buy a second bike when you were taking care of your mom. I thought I was going to hear a second bike. I was like, “Screw the second bike. Mom, enjoy.”

My daughter has a wonderful sense of humor. She thinks this entire Peloton thing is a cult.

It’s a happy cult.

For the holidays, she got me this wonderful book called Combating Cult Mind Control.

Here’s the real test as to whether or not it’s a cult. Here’s how you know. Have you read the book?

No.

It’s a cult, then. A cult member would not read that book. She gave you a litmus test and you failed.

Also, the fact that I have recruited six people into the cult.

That means you have enough people to create your own Power Zone team.

We have a wonderful team that I’ve been riding with, and it’s all people over 60.

Do you guys do like four rides a week, then the challenge 3, 5?

It’s a three-ride challenge plus the additional extra ride you can take. We ended up with four rides.

I bet you’re glad that you are retired and have time to do that many rides.

The January Challenge that’s coming up is shorter for some reason. It’s not eight weeks It’s four weeks I think.

Make Peloton fun. Don't make it feel like work. Share on X

Do you have a preferred instructor?

Hannah Corbin is my favorite instructor, although I ride with anybody who plays oldies. Sam Yo is the only one who’s ever had a ’50s class.

I didn’t even know he had a ‘50s class.

There is one if you search for it. I will do anything ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s. My daughter was born in ’84, so I didn’t evolve any music past that. I also love the Broadway rides. It has been great. I love classical music. Christine D’Ercole had that Fantasia Ride. Peloton missed out because they’ve got a great relationship with Disney. We should have the movie playing in the background. I’m listening to Christine describe how the dinosaurs are walking across. You can’t imagine that in your mind if you have not seen it. Having Mickey Mouse on the screen would have been great.

Have you done more of your outdoor classes? Do you still go on walks and stuff?

I do go on walks during COVID. My mailbox is half a mile away from my house. I would get in a twenty-minute walk every day to get the mail. I’m trying to figure out how to do outdoor biking with the class. That doesn’t seem to work out. We’ve got lots of hills here.

I hope your mail person is punctual because I would hate to walk all the way out there and be like, “He’s not here yet.”

I usually see the mail truck drive by while I’m working out on the bike.

You don’t know how frustrated I get when I go out to check the mail, and they have not shown up yet. It’s 40 feet from the door and I’m like, “That’s wasted energy.”

I don’t know why for some reason they put a group mailbox at the beginning of the development.

It’s for privacy reasons. There are a lot of newer developments that are doing that because it’s harder for people to do identity theft if you’re looking for a particular person and things like that. You keep it all in one place.

That makes it easier on the postal workers because it’s one-stop.

If you’re picking it up as you drive into the neighborhood then it’s easy.

I’m glad you explained that it was at the beginning of your development because I was picturing you living on so much acreage that you had to walk for twenty minutes.

The driveway is 200 feet.

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

Enjoy it. You don’t have to go at the pace that the instructor sets. I tried riding with Jenn Sherman when I first started and quickly learned that I could not do 100 RPM when I was new.

I still can’t. Not when she does it at 45 or 50 on the resistance, and then crank it up to 100.

The other problem with having two bikes is that the calibration is all over the place. Getting two bikes calibrated the same is almost impossible. If you’re looking at the leaderboard and you’re wondering why your number is half of somebody else, it’s because the bikes are not calibrated the same. I did finally break down and get the Bike+.

Do you have two Bike+?

It’s just one Bike+. We need to take advantage of the Black Friday trading deal. I have to worry about getting the bike in New Hampshire to match the one here.

You can give your daughter the old bike and bring her into the cult.

After you get her sucked in, you turn around and give her that book in a couple of years.

I keep trying to get my wife to ride.

I was going to ask if she rides. She doesn’t ride?

She won’t ride. She does a workout on the treadmill. I tried to get her to buy a tread. She hated the original tread because of the slats. She didn’t like the feel of it. I said, “Look at the screen.” She says, “Can I watch TV on it?” I said, “No, but you have the class and the instructor.” She said, “Can I turn the sound off?” She gets on the treadmill and watches TV on her iPad. She does her thing, and she’s very happy doing that.

Whatever makes her active and happy to be active, that’s what it is all about. If that works for her and it motivates her to get on there and walk, that’s fabulous. Think about how many people are not doing that and could be. More power to her. We would love to have her in our cult.

She is not joining. I did manage to get to two classes in New York while the world shut down. I got to do a ride with Jennifer Jacobs back when I first started, then I did a ride with Hannah Corbin. I did see Hannah when she was in Boston for the opening of the showroom.

She came to the opening in St. Louis too.

She is so nurturing. She is a great instructor for the new people who are easing in and getting used to the whole thing. That was fun. I’m sorry, I missed you guys when you were in Boston. We’re not doing indoor restaurants.

You got to do what works for you. We understand.

I kept the weight off. I’m healthy and cut back on my meds. I find it fun. Find music or a type of class that you like and chase that. Make it fun. Don’t make it work.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is Speedy Jeff. When I was fifteen years old, I started playing in the pickup ice hockey game. Because I was the slowest guy on the ice, they called me Speedy. It’s cute so when I got my bike, I used it.

I bet you get a lot of shout-outs.

I love getting shout-outs and high-fives from people. There’s nobody who has ever high-five me that has not gotten a high-five back. The only thing that confuses me is every once in a while, I’ll get on the bike and there will be 100 high-fives.

You got a milestone. It has been a ten-day streak or something like that.

I never look at the screen because I know where I’m going. I don’t look at that top thing where it says, “Today is your 300th ride.”

Did you celebrate your 1,200th ride or is it coming up?

I hit 1,200 not so long ago.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you if you would like to be found.

I’m on Facebook. I’m in a bunch of the Peloton groups. I never did Facebook before Peloton. I had a company page and a personal page that I didn’t use, but then I got involved with a bunch of the different groups, the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s group, Hannah’s Rockstars, Jenn’s group, and your group. I’m on Facebook. I don’t do any of those other things.

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

Thank you both. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

—

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

We are going to be talking to Erica McLean. She is very involved in the Peloton world. She’s also a psychic. We’re going to do a Peloton reading and you have to remember, we did this several weeks ago. Let’s see how well that reading has gone.

It was a very different Peloton lineup when we did that interview. I guess that’s it for this one. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or 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 to sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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