TCO 251 | Mental Health

251: Ally Love Hits the Pause Button? Plus Our Interview with Joyce Marter

TCO 251 | Mental Health

 

  • Ally Love takes a break from Peloton.
  • Selena Samuela’s wedding is this weekend.
  • Daniel McKenna & “mystery woman” make Page Six.
  • Alex Toussaint to hose the 2022 NewFronts.
  • Cody Rigsby makes the cover of US Weekly.
  • Kristen Ferguson talks to Shape Magazine about becoming a mother.
  • Kendall Toole was featured on the Hurdle podcast.
  • Marcel Dinkins participated in her first marathon.
  • Kimmi Mack joins us to discuss what’s next for Chase Tucker’s Facebook Group.
  • Dr. Jenn – Making peace with weight gain while strength training.
  • The Peloton Guide gets an official release date.
  • Peloton announces a new “strength-based” virtual event.
  • Barry McCarthy sends a company-wide email outlining his vision.
  • The Tread gets a pause button.
  • Angelo has tips for healthy snacks when time is of the essence.
  • Peloton announces new Artist Series: Reba
  • We have a past guest update from Ali On The Run.
  • There are Mother’s Day classes for the UK.
  • Kirsten Ferguson & Robin Arzon team up for Women’s History Month.
  • Birthdays: Becs Gentry (3/27)

All this plus our interview with Joyce Marter!

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Ally Love Hits the Pause Button? Plus Our Interview with Joyce Marter

We’re recording this at an unusual time because we’re getting ready to leave. By the time you read this, we will already be on a boat or en route to a boat if you’re an early riser.

I don’t know where we will be and I don’t care.

We’re not going on a cruise at all. We’re going to Paducah, Kentucky. I had a feeling that might change your opinion on how much you care. Because of the unusual recording time for us, it means one, John Mills is not with us, but he will be returning if he wants to.

It’s always voluntary.

He’s not obligated by law or anything. It’s not part of a community service sentence. We’re also recording a little bit earlier than usual. If there’s any late breaking news, we can’t be held responsible. If Barry McCarthy steps down and John Foley seizes the reins again, you will have to wait until the next episode.

If there’s a Peloton coup, the stock price dips or the stock price rises, you just have to wait to hear our thoughts on it until the next episode because we will not have WiFi and I’m not jumping on. I don’t care. I’m going to take a whole weekend and not worry about the internet.

Especially when you see how much the internet costs you on a boat.

It feels like it’s more expensive on this one than the Disney cruise, but that’s a whole another thing.

Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, what pray tell do you have in store for people?

We are going to talk about Ally Love taking a pause. What’s happening?

She took a pause and reflect very seriously.

It’s a lot longer than three days. Selena is getting married. Make sure you send some well wishes. The good old UK is having some Mother’s Day classes because they have Mother’s Day at a different time of the year than in the United States. Don’t forget, there is the virtual community event that is taking place the day this drops that Peloton suddenly decided to have, which was very confusing. We will get to all that later. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn and she is talking about making peace with weight gain while you’re strength training. Angelo from MetPro talks about tips for healthy snacks when time is of the essence. He has some very good tips for everyone.

We also have a special visit.

We’re going to have Kimberly Mack on. She is the admin of Chase Tucker’s fan group. She is going to share with us what the plans are with the group now that Chase is leaving and how they feel over there.

We’re getting some firsthand boots on the ground reporting on what’s going on in the world of Chase Tucker fandom. Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a nice rating and review so people who come along after you will know we’re worth checking out.

You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget, we have a mailing list you can sign up for at theclipout.com. We throw a lot of articles and links at you pretty quickly. You can get them all emailed to you in one easy digest. Also, we have a YouTube page. You can watch all of these episodes in HD glory at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. There’s all that, let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

Big news from the world of Ally Love.

There have been some interesting things that she’s been posting. It started a few days ago. She posted that she wasn’t a fitness instructor prior to One Peloton and she never had the desire to become an instructor. She says, “As an athlete runner and dancer, I love fitness and conversation. However, what I did realize shortly before this photo was taken is that God had other plans for me. As Peloton instructors, we do more than just fitness. We will share more in a later post. If you’re at a crossroad in your career or personal life, I encourage you to stay curious about your greatness. Paths aren’t always linear.”

She then posts on her Brooklyn Nets page, “This season and these last nine years have been a journey. Shout out to the teams. I’m not saying goodbye, just see you later, hopefully, on the court for the playoffs. I will be back.” She then posts, “More to come on this surprise dream project, no plan to teach classes in London. I will be back in New York to teach live classes during this time. I have plenty of new content dropping during these next couple of weeks, packing for London.” I believe further down, it also said that she was going to be gone 6 to 7 weeks. We know it’s a pause. We know there are no live classes on schedule at all for Ally Love, but she does have three encore classes and she’s saying she will be back. What is this? What could this be?

There is a huge connection between our physical health, mental health, self-esteem, and how we put ourselves out in the world. Share on X

I don’t know. It sounds like she has recorded content that will drop while she’s on a pause.

She says, “I will be back to New York throughout to teach live classes during this time.” I don’t know what “this time” means. It sounds like it might be the 6 to 7 weeks. Does it mean 6 to 7 weeks and then she’s back to teach and then she’s gone again? I don’t know.

Was there any speculation that you noticed as to what all this might mean?

I’ve heard she’s filming a movie. These are just speculation. It’s not like anyone has any proof of these things.

I would think if she was filming a movie, that would be some sort of news story because those castings are normally pretty public. Let’s not forget we have this podcast because I have a film podcast and I am a film critic and I’m in the film critics association. That’s my world now. If she was cast in a movie, that’s something that ends up in Variety or Hollywood Reporter. That would not be a small story if a Peloton instructor ended up in a film.

It’s not for Peloton because she’s not teaching classes in London. We know that.

It’s also interesting that she says she’s going to come back to New York at this time and she will do some classes. Why would you not carve out time to do a few from the London studio since it’s where you’re at?

That’s what I’m saying. It’s very confusing. I’ve had some people say maybe she’s pregnant and she gets nauseous when she exercises. That happens to some people.

I’m pretty sure human gestation takes longer than 6 to 7 weeks.

I agree but you never know. Maybe it’s anticipated to be a short-lived thing. In other words, maybe the symptoms will go away after a short time period.

I don’t think it would because if you think about it, she doesn’t have any kids. She would have no idea what her body might or might not do and be able to put a timestamp on it. I throw that one right out.

No one knows. I don’t know. She’s talking about how it’s sports-related but not instructor related. Does London have a Dancing With The Stars type of thing? Could it be something like that? Could it be that she’s on some reality shows?

They have lots of things like that over there that are popular. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is a big show. I would think if they were going to do something like that, don’t you think they would grab a British instructor rather than an American instructor?

Honestly, I don’t know what they will do.

It seems weird to me that they would grab an American instructor.

Tom, what is your idea? Tell me what you think it is.

She’s starting a Pink Floyd tribute band. She just likes tea. She wants to visit all the set locations from Benny Hill.

In all seriousness. It says, “Surprise dream project.” She’s saying it’s a big deal. It’s something that’s a project. It’s not just like she’s visiting. I think it’s more complex than a visit.

If it’s sports-related, it makes me wonder if it has something to do with soccer because they got the soccer over there. They call it ball foot. I don’t know if you know that or not. That’s what they call it.

I’m sure it will become clear probably while we’re out at sea. All of the questions will be answered.

We’re going to be at sea and it will be like, “Ally Love was appointed Prime Minister.” Do you want to get the WiFi to work? It’s $75 a day.

Just to clarify, we do have social media access. We’re not doing the full thing so you can DM me but don’t at me.

The big day is almost here for Selena.

This screen is only to show that is when they are getting married. It says, “We’re not going to be officially married until Saturday.” They picked up the marriage certificate so they are “sworn in.”

I like to call it a non-hunting license.

Congrats to Selena. That is very exciting.

We should probably say that we are not going to be going to her wedding. If people think like, “They’re going on a trip,” no we’re going on a cruise. We will be on the Beach Boys Cruise.

I do not see Selena digging ‘60s music to the point that she would schedule her wedding around it.

That seems unlikely. Daniel McKenna made Page Six.

It’s so funny to me. People are simultaneously offended by this and also fascinated by this. I’m getting a lot of both. I personally think it’s funny that he’s one of the newest Peloton instructors. There is somebody hanging out in a restaurant feeding this information.

Page Six is like, “This is the Peloton instructor we’re going to talk about.” In all due respect to him, it’s an odd choice. It also makes me wonder because I know some people have been like, “This shouldn’t be reported on. I don’t think these gossip columns should be gossiping.”

They ought to see how many times it got shared.

It also makes me wonder like, “Was this planted?”

It’s interesting because if you read the “article,” it says that the person who fed this information to Page Six was an ex of Daniel’s and that it didn’t last between them. There was no supposed bad blood, but that person dated him and saw him in the restaurant and decided to feed this information to Page Six. That’s what it claims. I have no idea about the accuracy of any of this. I thought it was funny that our Peloton instructors are being paparazzi.

TCO 251 | Mental Health

 

If they’re going to be celebrities, this is what goes along with it. It’s also like he can’t be the first instructor to go on a date in New York City.

We’ve seen several times on that website, whatever, the one that’s like do me. That’s how you say it, but it’s not how it’s spelled. They always post gossip stuff and they’ve seen some of the instructors out with other celebrities. Tunde has been spotted several times with Common. I don’t mean it was in a romantic way, but they’ve been spotted together and that’s been reported on. Although it wasn’t on Page Six, it was just on that gossip website.

Gossip websites are like, “That’s the beast that can be fed,” so they will talk about a lot of things but for it to actually make Page Six, which is the top tier of gossip.

People speak very lowly of Page Six and the New York Post. I was told it was trash. How dare I post it. I thought it was funny.

She posts Peloton stuff. Cut her some slack.

I guess everybody wants to know about this.

I suppose if it’s an official press release, we are allowed to discuss it.

That seems fair.

Alex Toussaint will be hosting the 2022 NewFronts, which is sponsored by IAB.

It’s going to be taking place May 2nd through 5th. This is the in-house person like whenever Jess Sims does her thing or when Ally Love was at the Nets. This is that.

IAB is the interactive advertising bureau or something like that. You know how networks have upfronts where they are like, “Here are the new shows for the seasons.” This is for digital platforms to be like, “Here are the new digital platform things for the coming year.” I know those two worlds are getting very blurry.

How do you be a host for something like that?

I think it’s like, “Up next, here’s everyone from Crackle to tell you about Joe Dirt 3.” At least, that’s my understanding.

He will be the person that’s going to run the show.

Yes. Correct.

That’s very cool. Either way, it’s great for him. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to have all that exposure.

It’s also a good group of people for him to get in front of. It’s people that make a lot of digital content. He gets a lot of FaceTime in front of them in a very high profile way. Who knows what else that could lead to.

You never know. Hopefully, good things that will keep him at Peloton.

Cody Rigsby made the cover of Us Weekly.

He did, although it’s funny because it’s about the day in the life of Cody. I think they grabbed it from other things. They said that he was a California native and he’s not he’s from North Carolina. It was like sometime in 2021 when Dancing With the Stars first came out, somebody posted an article and it said that he was from California. It said he was from a different state and it was all wrong. I feel like this got picked up.

I know that Peter Tork lied about his birthday and that followed him around the rest of his life.

That’s strange. Is it because he didn’t want to tell how old he was?

They wanted to make him look a little younger when the Monkees started so they put the wrong birth year on one of the record albums. He spent the rest of his life trying to correct it. I also find it interesting, not that Cody doesn’t deserve to be on the cover of Us Weekly, but you would’ve thought that would have happened a little bit closer to Dancing With The Stars.

I can’t help but wonder if they were just grabbing stuff. I did find the little fun fact that in his 8:30 PM timeframe, if he’s not out to dinner, he likes to play Smash Bros and Mario Kart with his partner.

It also says he’s from California so can we believe that? He probably likes to play Asteroids and Missile Command.

You have a very good point. We can trust nothing.

Michelle K is at it again.

This time she got an interview with Kirsten Ferguson, and I love that this story got shared. I heard Kirsten talk about her experience with miscarriage and her journey after that, a little bit on one of her runs. This goes into a little more detail as far as how she processed that and how she came through on the other side, and then ended up giving birth. She says she’s stronger for it. I appreciate that she shared that. Michelle K did an excellent job covering it as always.

That’s a very difficult topic to talk about.

It’s very personal.

Kendall Toole was featured on the Hurdle Podcast.

That’s episode 199. You can check that out and hear Kendall’s interview. If you want to keep up with the latest.

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Marcel Dinkins completed her first marathon.

Can you believe that? Her very first and it was her birthday so she had a lot going on. She finished it in Virginia Beach if you were wondering where it was. Congrats to Marcel. Can I say that Dr. Jenn and I took a run together on Sunday and that happened to be Marcel’s 45-minute ‘80s run from the past weekend in honor of Marcel.

As everybody is now very well aware, Chase Tucker has announced that he was leaving Peloton. We thought, what does that do to the Chase Tucker Facebook group? That’s got to be quite a blow. We were wondering how they would handle it. We reached out to Kimberly Mack from the Chase Tucker Facebook group. We had a brief little conversation with her about why she love Chase Tucker, and what the future looks like for that Facebook group over there. Without further ado, here is Kimberly Mack.

Joining us is Kimberly Mack. How is it going?

How are you?

I’m happy to meet you, but I’m sad under the circumstances in which we are meeting. You started Chase’s group. It was officially called Chase’s Wolf pack. Is that what it was called?

Originally, it was Chase’s Tribe and it was a Facebook page that was dormant for quite some time. When I started running on the treadmill, I was doing the tribe wars two summers ago when everybody was going to tribe wars, and I fell in love with Chase. I went to his fan page and it was dormant. I reached out to the admin of that page. I couldn’t get anything so I took it upon myself with two other ladies, Kidada and Joy. We moved from that page to what is now Chase’s Wolfpack, which we made it Chase’s Tribe as well. That was March of 2019 or so.

You guys have a great community over there and are very supportive. Everyone is super nice to each other. How was everybody taking the sad news?

Everyone is so sad. We were like, “No, he can’t be leaving us,” but we are excited for him as well. We’re going to miss him on the Tread.

I’m sure. Were you able to catch his Instagram live, where he went into details about what he’s going to be doing?

I didn’t, but Kidada and Joy did. My little full-time job had me busy that day. Some tech thing, he’s going to be doing. I saw that he posted a picture and he’s back in Tennessee. I guess that’s where he’s going to be.

Was there any inclination or rumblings in the group that this might be coming beforehand or were you guys blindsided by it?

We were blindsided by it. Joy and Kidada and I did notice that Chase back in the summer, he’s started getting quiet, not posting as much on his Instagram page. We didn’t think he was going to leave Peloton. We thought he was maybe up to something else within Peloton like maybe meditation or yoga. He went away and did the little meditation sabbatical thing back in July. We were thinking, “Maybe that’s what he’s going to do,” but no real rumblings. Maybe on another page, the BPR page, a couple of people noticed that he hasn’t been on the schedule like, “What’s going on?” We were like, “Don’t worry about it.” A day later, he came out and said he was leaving Peloton.

That’s got to be frustrating for you, guys.

It’s a gut punch when it’s your favorite instructor. I’m sure it’s a cycle of grieving. It’s like you go through a loss like a death. Anytime you have a loss, you go through the grieving cycle. It’s not just when someone dies. It feels very similar to that. I’m glad you guys have a space where you can share it and it’s embraced. I remember back in the day, other instructors have left. Things were set on the OPP and it got ugly. Let’s leave it at that. You guys have a nice safe space there to be able to talk about your feelings and that’s good.

I did ask everyone to keep it positive on the page because the page has been positive the whole time we have been running it. We definitely didn’t want any negativity on the page.

What do you think comes next for your group? Does it keep on? I’m sure there have been friendships made in that space.

Our plans are to keep it going as long as it can stay alive. We’re not going to shut it down. I looked on the page and I have about fifteen new requests for people who wanted to join the page. We’re going to keep it going as long as we can. I don’t know how long it’s going to go because people want live classes. They want new content and all of that. With all of the challenge pages that are out there now, it’s only so many challenges that we can do.

That makes sense. What is your leaderboard name so people can find you?

I am JustBeingKimbi. Just like my Facebook page, Kimberly Kimbi Mack. The meaning behind that is I’m just being me.

That’s all we can be. We normally ask people who their favorite instructors are. I feel like we should ask you who your second favorite instructor is. Where are you pivoting to?

I am a runner so I run a lot. I do a lot of running around the United States. My favorite instructor, everybody gives her a slack. She’s army strong, Marcel is my favorite.

She’s a badass.

She doesn’t take any miss. She’s like, “I don’t care what you’re saying about me. This is what I’m doing.”

I don’t know how she runs with all that hair. She has so much hair.

Sometimes I look at her because my hair is long too. I’m like, “Let me put this.” She does it. We have the bike too so my favorite cycle instructor is Cliff. I actually run his fan page as well.

That’s getting back up both in the world of fitness and in the Facebook world.

She’s international. That’s great.

I run the Cliffhangers with a couple of other ladies.

That’s a fun name. I like that. I haven’t seen that yet. That’s great. I’m out of the loop with some of the newer instructors because those groups form so fast now. It used to take a long time and then it would happen and it was very organic. Now, as soon as you get a new instructor it’s off to the races. Somebody is on it. I love that they have that support right out of the gate. It’s awesome.

TCO 251 | Mental Health

 

As soon as we saw he was launching, we were right on and we started his page. We actually have a contact in Germany that helped us along with that. She helps run the page as well.

I was wondering, do you speak German or you just don’t care?

I don’t speak German. All I know is “Ich Liebe Dich,” which means I love you, but that’s all I know in German. I just follow along with the close captions. I just do what he does. When he turns his red knob, I turn my red knob. When he gets up on the saddle, I get up out of the saddle. When he saddles back down. I saddle back down. It doesn’t bother me that he’s speaking German at all. I love him.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. We’re sorry for the circumstances, but I’m glad that everybody has a positive outlook. I’m glad you have a backup for your Facebook admin hobbies.

I think Peloton needs to pay me a little bit. I didn’t get a W2 from Peloton this year or the year before.

Same, and you won’t next year either. You do it for love and you just got to be okay with that.

I love it though. I love the community of Peloton. I love what they stand for. It’s bringing so many people together so I love it. It’s awesome.

People are always looking for ways to make working out not feel like working out. That’s where FightCamp comes in.

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You can explore thousands of workouts led by expert trainers that meet you on your time. Live punch stats motivate you to push harder and help you map out your progress.

FightCamp provides real-time data during your workout so you can track that progress, work toward guided goals, and see exactly how you’re improving over time.

Plus it’s good for your brain. Boxing requires focus. Precise combinations push you to think about every punch you throw. It’s the ultimate way to clear your mind and forget you’re working out.

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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, or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She has written four bestselling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide To Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. Ladies and gentlemen, and all points in between, it’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

Samantha Jones has a question for you, Dr. Jenn. She says, “How do you deal with weight gain when you’re doing more strength and the mental trip that that sends you on?” She has gained more muscle and she knows that. She scales and that number is going up, and it’s driving her bananas.

I’m going to start out saying something very controversial, I hate scales. I don’t mean for me, personally, but I discourage people from weighing themselves. It can be completely derailing. I think Samantha Jones is the perfect example of that. It sounds like she’s got a great strength regimen going and her body is responding to it. She’s focusing on the number on the scale and it’s throwing her off. If she was not getting on the scale and letting those numbers lead her, then she would probably be feeling fantastic about herself and say, “Look how strong I’ve gotten. Look at all my new muscles. Look at how awesome I am.”

I discourage people from getting on the scale. I will give you an example. As many of you know and I’ve talked a lot about it with you guys, I had an eating disorder for ten years. I have now recovered and I’m very healthy with food in my body. During the course of that ten years, where I did everything from restricting to overeating and everything in between, there was a period of time where I did a liquid diet. Just like Oprah did Optifast, I did a different company and I did this liquid diet to lose weight. At the end of it, during the re-feeding phase, I bought myself a talking scale.

I weigh myself and it says, “You weigh X number of pounds. Have a nice day.” The next day, I get on the scale and it says, “You weigh X number of pounds. You have gained 1 pound, have a nice day.” Every time I got on the scale, it said that I gained weight. I was so focused at the time. because I was in the throes of my eating disorder that I completely got derailed. This scale was telling me I was gaining weight so that must be the case. I got so upset and so anxious that I started overeating. I started bingeing. I started emotional eating and things spiraled out of control. Long story short, I was then getting weighed at a doctor’s office and it turned out the scale was broken.

That’s insanity.

To me, it’s the perfect example of being so focused on the external and the number on the scale that it derails you. I encourage people to focus on the process over those external numbers and measures. Instead focus on, am I listening to my body? Am I eating foods that energize me? Am I eating foods that are giving me proper nutrition? Am I happy with my workout program? Is that something that feels good to me? Those are healthy questions. When we get to focus on that number, we can get very derailed and we can get crazy about it and we can get obsessive about it, and it can trigger eating disorders. It can create new eating issues or eating disorders. It’s important to be very mindful about if the scale is a good thing for you or a bad thing for you, and how often you weigh yourself.

We have to shift that narrative and realize that we're both the protagonist and author of our own life stories. It's about taking responsibility and having accountability. Share on X

How do you feel about taking pictures and measuring?

I feel that it’s similar. Measuring is numbers. I’m not a fan of pictures that are shaming, where you stripped down to your bra and panties and examining your body. To me, the healthiest thing that you can do is to become so in touch with your body that you can sense when there are changes. You are able to say in a healthy way, “I’ve noticed that I’m bloated. Maybe my period is coming.” You’re able to say, “I’ve noticed that I put on some weight. I wonder if I am doing some more emotional eating right now because I’m going through a stressful time, or if maybe my body is just responding differently, or maybe I’m retaining water.” Being able to cling into our body, our body’s signals and our body’s changes is the healthier place to be.

I’ve never been good at that. I almost need some sort of external evidence for it to click for me. One of the things I did was I used to have braided belts and I stopped because you can adjust them wherever they need to be that day to be comfortable. I found that having belts with holes in them like when I went from hole three to hole two, it was like, “Heads up.” It would not click for me until I was way past where I would like to be.

For people who relate to what you said, the work for people who have that experience is learning to tune in to your body. Also, starting to even ask yourself, “Why am I not tuned into my body? Why am I not paying attention? Why am I surprised?” Once I had crossed the line into the recovery world, there were times when I saw pictures of myself. It’s actually helpful in my day-to-day life to be like, “I thought it was much bigger than that.” My vision of myself is not accurate when I was able to see it from the outside world effectively like, “That wasn’t me.” I would see that person very differently. It was helpful in my recovery. Those kinds of before and after stripped down pictures, there’s something about them that feels very punitive and very like, “I’m examining my body for negative things,” which I don’t like. I don’t think that is helpful and healthy.

Thank you very much for that. Until next time, where can we find you?

You can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. You can find all my Peloton workouts on my Insta stories. You can also find my weekly column in InStyle magazine. It’s called Hump Day With Dr. Jenn. You can Google it and find all the columns.

Thank you.

The Peloton Guide finally has a confirmed release date.

April 5th, it’s happening. I’m hearing lots and lots of comments about this. There are people that are going to buy it because they love Peloton and they trust them. I’ve got these people that are like, “I have my Tonal and I’m all set,” then you’ve got people that are like, “I don’t know. I’m thinking about getting this other thing later, the strength platform that’s going to come out.” For anybody who’s listening, I’ve said this before, you got to have the Guide if you’re going to buy the platform device that’s coming out in 2023. I don’t know how it’s going to go over, but I don’t think this is going to be their best item. I’m not going to lie.

It will be interesting to see if sales pick up as other devices come out that you need it to operate. I also wonder if you will maybe see a point in the future where people can’t buy the next thing because they didn’t get this thing and that causes scrambling. Are you going to get one?

I don’t know. Do you think I should? I don’t know that I will use it. I do get a lot of strengths workouts. Here’s the other thing about this. They are going to have workouts that are only on the Guide. If you want to experience everything, the only way to do that is to have the Guide. There are going to be workouts you can’t get to otherwise. That’s when you drive people crazy. It’s going to drive me crazy so maybe I have to buy it.

In other words, you’re getting one. Why did I even ask? There was an email that was leaked.

It’s Barry’s vision. He talks about his vision and I’m going to go over a few of the things. He wants to become a global connected fitness platform with 100 million users. He says global means global, not just a little but truly so Europe, Latin, America, everything. He says for connected fitness, he is being very specific about that. It’s a content and a software game. That’s a whole new level of focus and investment in growing our software capabilities and our digital app. He’s also saying that that’s about designing hardware for high volume manufacturing for delivery, not just for installation and for reliability levels they have not yet achieved. He goes on to say, “I believe these last three attributes are also prerequisites to building a big international business.” I agree with that wholeheartedly.

This next one, we need to dig into. He says it’s a platform, not a service. It’s about becoming a platform. If you’re wondering what a platform is, think TikTok versus Spotify, open versus close, user-generated content and creator-generated content versus proprietary content, think Apple and its app store. This terrifies me. I am worried about this. There are a lot of people who said, “This is going to be great,” then they gave their reason why. Do you know, Tom, out of the hundreds of comments I saw about this, not one person’s vision of this was the same, which is my concern. Of course, it’s going to be instructors that are certified and they can come on here and teach. That’s what it’s going to be, but everybody else hates that idea.

Have you ever gone to Amazon and you’re like, “I’m going to buy this thing,” then after you completed your transaction, you see the email a little closer and it’s like, “It’s shipping from China in 4 to 8 weeks?” You’re like, “Now turn that into a class and post it on the Peloton platform.”

You could come up with cool ideas like Lanebreak, which I definitely agree with. The thing is then what happens to our instructors? If the instructors have always been the service and now anybody can provide the service, what does that mean for our instructors? For all of you out there that worry that instructors are going to go somewhere, this is what you should worry about. This one should keep you up at night. This is going to change Peloton more than anything else we’ve seen.

I know a lot of you think it’s for the better but I disagree. I think shareholders will be happy. I do not think members will be. This is going to change from being a curated and very beautiful platform that I can go to, and very clearly and quickly know that whatever I choose, I’m getting an excellent rendition of a workout to God only knows what junk will be out there. That’s what you wanted, and then there are 100 million subscribers. I can’t even imagine this. I hope that’s realistic from a shareholder perspective, but I cannot imagine 100 million subscribers. They can’t handle whatever we have now at 3.6 million.

What would the OPP look like with 100 million subscribers?

My computer would explode if I went to it. That’s what I think it would look like. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

We shall.

A much better and more exciting news.

TCO 251 | Mental Health

 

The Tread gets a pause button.

Now all platforms are created equal. The pause button for the Tread arrived. You can now take on-demand classes and pause them.

Won’t the Tread turn off when it’s paused if you’re gone for too long?

Apparently, you get an hour and you can still lock the Tread.

I know they put all those safety features on there so I didn’t know how the pause functionality.

It will keep you in that class but you’re going to have to still sign in when you get back. That’s what I think. I didn’t actually try it. I was busy. I got lots and lots of comments including one from Carrie saying, #Godnick, #pause. That made me happy.

A new virtual event was announced at the very last minute, very short notice.

We got an email for it. It was very short notice. It’s a virtual community event called Power in Identity. It’s interesting because it doesn’t so much say it here, but in the original email, it kept talking about strength. The reason I found that so fascinating was that three days before that, Tonal had sent out their email about the Tonal Strength Institute. They’re having an event on March 30th in the morning. It’s either live or you can take it on demand up to 30 days if you sign up ahead of time. The wording felt very similar in the email that came out, not so much on this particular page.

What’s also interesting, I don’t know what it means, but you see pictured here Camila Ramon, Charlotte Weidenbach, Heather from the Peloton Health and Wellness Advisory Council, then Robin is on here, but you don’t see any mention of Robin. I don’t know what that means but it’s interesting. The other connection between Tonal and Peloton is that specifically, Tonal Strength Institute is Tonal’s advisory board. That whole Tonal Strength Institute days focused around that advisory committee. Two days later, Peloton puts this out and it’s from Peloton Health and Wellness Advisory Council. It’s supposedly for Women’s History Month, but it’s so last minute that it makes people think that it was not on the docket ahead of time. I have no idea if it was or it wasn’t, but that’s the way it’s coming across. The whole thing is interesting.

It will be interesting to see what it actually ends up being.

It will because Peloton hasn’t done a lot with their advisory board that they’ve talked about, not to say there are not things happening in the background, but we’re not seeing a lot come out of it in the public. Whereas Tonal has been very very forthcoming about all of the changes and things that they have done through their advisory committee in a much shorter time.

Joining us once again is Angelo from MetPro here to answer all of your fitness and nutrition questions.

Thanks for having me back.

Thank you for joining us. Sarah Lester has a question for you. She says, “Good ideas are needed for snacks for people that have negative 30 seconds to eat specifically teachers and healthcare workers. Fruit and nuts sound great but in practice, they take too long.”

Sarah, challenge accepted. This is a tricky one that I have to deal with with a number of my clients. I worked with a number of trial lawyers. I work with a number of surgeons. Trust me, it doesn’t go over well if it’s, “Give me one minute. Let me just finish chewing on this.” It doesn’t work so well. Taking a time out while somebody is on the table being operated on, you got to be quick. This is where as much as I prefer whole foods and shakes. Shakes can play a great role. I’m going to say for two reasons. One, there are some good bars out there, but typically they’re going to come with added sugars unless you know which ones to look for. I’m going to say a bar takes as long as fruit and nuts.

I would also say consider what type of fruit, and even what type of nuts. If you want something that will pack a wall up, try some cashews. That’s a quick to eat nut. It breaks down fast. It has a lot of calories in it. If you want fast fruits, probably a pineapple isn’t the best go-to or you’ll probably not open a coconut in the middle of the day, but something like a banana. It’s super fast to eat. Apples and pears can be pretty quick. It will take a few bites. Grapes can be pretty quick, and look for things that aren’t going to make a mess. As much as I like strawberries, sometimes they can take a little longer and they can be a little bit messier.

Another great go-to is something like a jerky for a totally different reason. Although I’m usually not recommending this for people trying to lose weight because it’s very calorie-dense for very little food volume, you could do jerky and dried fruits. The reason is that it is not quick, but it is discreet. You take a bite and then go on with whatever you’re doing, your work, etc. and take another bite. It’s not going to be big and messy.

Beef jerky, I eat a lot in it and there’s some chew in there.

What I do with some of my surgeons, lawyers and others that need to eat fast is I make a mashed type of meal. It might sound gross but it actually tastes good. Something that is soft and you can eat it quick. Sometimes I will do a mashed sweet potato or even a whole potato, but I like white potato rather, sweet potato or yam mashed. I will use a ground turkey or lean ground beef, mashed. I will mix it together. There you have your macronutrients, full and reasonably balanced. If you want to even get a vegetable in there, you could do green beans like canned green beans. It’s not my first go-to but it’s soft. You could whip it up and you could make it into a mash.

It’s practical because you can literally put it in a small cup, eat it with a spoon or even drink it

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You know what though? We don’t think about this. If you have a surgeon that’s going to be performing a six-hour, seven-hour surgery, you want them to eat. You want them to have energy.

You want them to be thinking clearly. You do not want them empty of calories when they are making decisions on what to cut inside of your body.

To increase the calorie load of such a concoction, you can always put a little bit of oil in. A teaspoon or a tablespoon will bring up the calorie load. That is something super fast that would give you super quick energy. If you actually need to fit in a meal, that’s something you can try. If you have that, if you’re at work and you’re on the go, you can put it in the microwave for 60 seconds. It’s actually not that bad. Think about having a dinner of ground beef, sweet potato and green beans. This is a way you can get it in quick.

Smoothies work well. You have to make them in advance. You could do a yogurt smoothie. You could even put some protein powder in it. You could mix in a smoothie that’s rice milk or almond milk or just water if you want to keep the calories low. You could put in things like almond butter or peanut butter. You can put in fruit. You can mix it up in advance. They work great. I will just warn you. You will pay on the backend with cleanup time for the blender, the cups, the dishes with smoothies. if you don’t mind a little bit of cleanup later and you need something on the go that’s quick, that’s a great option to take with you.

If you do need to go to bars, what I recommend is don’t get the straight ones. There are so many bars out there that are basically a Snickers bar with protein added. If you look at the ingredients and it has 35 grams of sugar, it’s just a candy bar that had protein added, but there are some good quality ones. I like RX bars and similar. There are a lot of natural ones on the market that are similar to that. The reason I don’t quickly give brand recommendations is because by the time you hear this episode, all the brands have reformulated. Some of them have gone out of business and some are new. There are new ones on the market. Instead, just know what you’re looking for. A reasonable amount of carbs, high protein, low sugar, and you probably have a good bar on your hands.

Thank you for all of that. If people would like you to customize this information for them, where can they go?

MetPro.co/tco.

We have two new artist collaborations. The first is from Babyface.

I don’t know if you can call this a collaboration. He’s just on it. That’s all this was.

I thought it was an artist collaboration.

No, he’s literally on a treadmill.

Then ignore the sweeper I just had. It should be, “Celebrities in their Peloton.” Babyface has a Peloton.

It’s weird because I don’t even know if it’s his. He was filmed on a treadmill and he’s in a suit. I don’t know if this is his or he’s just walking on one and somebody filmed it. I don’t know anything about this but it’s fun so I wanted to share it.

It makes me wonder if he’s shooting a video or something because that is not how one would dress if one was on a Peloton.

Now we’re back to the regular scheduled program. I’m excited about this Peloton artist series because it’s Reba McEntire and she is the queen of country. There were lots of hate for this, especially over in John’s group. They were hating on this. I guess because it’s country and a lot of people hate country music. I don’t know that it was Reba in particular.

Peloton does so many different genres, and they haven’t done all that much country. It’s like they throw them a bone. Let them have their moment.

They weren’t trashing like, “How dare Peloton do that?” It was like, “I wouldn’t do that.” It was like, “I would never take that class.” It wasn’t hate toward Peloton for daring to have this. It still cracks me up and I love Reba McEntire. This is like ’90s country. I grew up listening to this. This is my jam. I’m not going to lie. This reminds me of home.

You grew up in middle America.

I did, sad as it is. I dug that song fancy.

We have an update from Ali On The Run.

We mentioned that she was going to be doing a special live episode. It was going to feature Becs Gentry and Nev Schulman. The image shared shows all three of them together and I thought it was fun so I just wanted to mention it. There are three people I enjoy a lot for very different reasons.

We watch Catfish all the time. I was hoping that Nev Schulman is going to be on the show and then Kamie showed up. He’d be like, “You got catfished by Catfish.”

That would be hilarious. I don’t know the Kamie runs the marathons the way Nev does, but that would be great.

There are Mother’s Day classes coming up for Americans but these are for the Brits because they celebrate Mother’s Day two months earlier.

It’s at the end of March. It is Mother’s Day in the UK and there are going to be two classes. One is going to be with Hannah Frankson. There’s a 30-day Mother’s Day ride on March 27th at 9:00 AM GMT, and then a Mother’s Day walk with Jermaine. That’s twenty minutes. It’s also on the 27th at 9:30 AM GMT.

TCO 251 | Mental Health

 

They shouldn’t call it Mother’s Day. They should call it Mum’s Day. That way we know that it’s not for Americans.

It would be easier for us. I don’t know that it would be easier for them.

We don’t say mum over here. If you say, “My mum called,” people would be like, “Are you weird? Quit watching Downton Abbey.” We’re in Missouri and we still call it Downtown Abbey. We got another two-for class coming at people.

I am looking forward to this. I am so stoked. Robin Arzon and Kirsten Ferguson, a two for one run together to celebrate Women’s History Month. This is going to be taking place on March 30th. By the time you read this, it will already have happened. I truly believe this is going to be epic. These two ladies are both badasses and I think it’s going to be so much fun. I cannot wait to take this class. Although I may have to wait until we get back.

I can’t imagine what the WiFi would cost you to take this class.

Finally, there’s one birthday. On March 27th, you get to say happy birthday to Becs Gentry.

Happy birthday to Becs Gentry. I hope it’s a lovely one. That’s on the 27th so it will be before the live run that I talked about.

Joining us in this episode via the magic of ZoomTube is Joyce Marter. Joyce, how’s it going?

Good, Tom. Thanks for having me.

Welcome, Joyce. Since we talk a lot about Peloton, one thing I like to start with is how did you first find out about Peloton? When was that in your timeframe?

It was probably a few years ago and my good friends Shelley and Denise had them. They were both looking fabulous. They talked about the super cool high-tech bike that they had in their basements. I thought it was way out of my league. It wasn’t until I was at my brother-in-law’s gym and one was available. I signed on and I loved it. When the pandemic hit, I was fortunate to order one and it’s transformed my life. I love it.

Did you find one at a gym?

It was a private gym in a condo building.

Even then, there aren’t a lot of those left out in the wild. You’re about to start seeing more of them but they went through a period where only people who bought in early were allowed to have those.

That is true. You slipped in through the gamut there. You got it during the pandemic. How long did you have to wait? I love hearing pandemic bikes delivery stories.

It wasn’t too bad. It was about 6 to 8 weeks, which I’ve heard is so much worse. It wasn’t mostly the delivery company that was having challenges or a little bit of both.

By the end of the first wave, both were happening but it was a challenge for XPO and Peloton because they were having orders stacked up and so they had to get the delivery from the parts that come from overseas. They had to get those and finish putting them together here. It was all kinds of things at play at the worst of it. Have you always been a person who works out or are you a person who’s new to working out?

Yes and no. I’m a moderate worker outer. I’ve grown up being very active, swimming, tennis. I played water polo for a bit in high school. I realized that was very difficult, so I became a cheerleader, a good Gen X-er who did aerobics in the early ‘90s and some weightlifting. Then I became a mom. I got way out of the habit of working out. I felt like my muscles were atrophied. I threw out my back.

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Like many of us who dealt with work-life balance challenges, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I’m a mental health professional. I know that there’s a huge connection between our physical health, mental health, self-esteem and how we put ourselves out in the world. Thankfully, I got back on the workout train. I became a certified yoga teacher. I like shaking it up. I do lots of different things to keep myself active.

When you got your Peloton, were you pretty active at that point? Have do you re-introduced workouts to your routine at that point?

I was in a bit of a couch potato relapse, which happens sonically. I do well with a workout program for a while and I phase out because life has gotten busy but probably the best thing for me with Peloton is the community and accountability. I liked the social accountability. I’m connected with friends and they can see when I’m not on my bike and in a healthy way. It’s a little shaming. I enjoy the app. I’m a person who uses meditation and yoga. If I’m walking my dogs, I click on a walking class and try to get credit. I used it with my Apple Watch in the health app because even if I’m kayaking, swimming or something, I logged that on the health app because the Peloton workouts go there too. It keeps me on track.

It’s nice to have one place that shows all of the different things that you do. I do love that. I use it. I was never an Apple person but I was forced to make the switch. I have to say, I do enjoy that about Apple.

It is nice to have everything all together.

You said that you’re a mental health professional. Tell us a little bit about that.

I’ve been a Licensed Psychotherapist for years. I’ve found my work emotionally, intellectually and spiritually rewarding. I’ve been in private practice in the Chicago area. I’ve founded an outpatient mental health company called Urban Balance which has 17 locations in 6 states. I’m passionate about destigmatizing mental health. We all deal with mental health challenges as part of the human condition.

I was afraid when I started graduate school at Northwestern that my professors were going to notice that I deal with an anxiety disorder, that they would be like, “You can’t be a therapist. You got issues,” but we all do. We’re all works in progress. We’re all human. We’re all not perfect. Holistic wellness is mind, body, spirit. When we work on our physical health with Peloton and other exercise routines, it’s a natural antidepressant. If we work out 3 times a week for 30 minutes or more, the research shows it’s as effective as taking an antidepressant.

For me, I deal with a lot of anxiety, so it’s very calming. It helps with sleep. I also noticed that taking it off the bike or yoga mat, that strength, resilience and mental attitude that you develop can translate into your relationships and how you put yourself out in the world, so more confidence, assertiveness, healthy boundaries and negotiation. We teach people how to treat us. When we show others that we care about ourselves, our physical wellness and our mental wellbeing, people treat us differently.

Backing up, I have to ask. When I hear you’re a psychotherapist in Chicago, my first thought is, do you know Bob Newhart?

I grew up as a kid watching him but I do not know him. I wish I could say yes.

What is a psychotherapist compared to the other branches that are out there? What differentiates? There are so many different titles, monikers, whatever you want to call them that they get bandied about. What does that mean?

I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. I’m a Master’s level psychotherapist or counselor. There are Master’s level social workers, marriage and family counselors. We are all Master’s Level Training. Some psychologists have their PhDs or PsyDs. They have a doctoral level of education. They often teach in universities or do research. Some are involved in psychological testing. Psychiatrists have MDs and they prescribe antidepressants and psychotropic medications. I call myself a Psychotherapist because I mostly do talk therapy. I work with individuals and couples. I work a lot in mindfulness, which is why I love yoga and meditation. Yoga is meditation with movement. It brings us a lot of peace and calm to focus on the here and now.

I also became interested in the psychology of money. In my practice, I noticed as my clients made progress in therapy, they started to earn more money. They started to get raises, promotions and start their businesses. I was like, “Why is this happening? How can I do this?” It was because as they got better in therapy, they felt better about themselves. Their self-worth improved. I published a book called The Financial Mindset Fix. It’s a mental fitness program for an abundant life, so having a work-life balance, mental wellbeing, supportive relationships and financial peace and prosperity.

Am I hearing your hypothesis correctly that the healthier you are mentally or emotionally, the better chances you have of reaching your dreams? For a lot of people that you were treating, dreams happen to be independent of an employment standpoint.

Yes. Not only independent from an employment standpoint but maybe having healthier, happier relationships or aligning their unique gifts with a need in the world, living a happier, fuller, more successful life. Many of us, when we talk about mental health, think about mental illness or struggle. In the pandemic, many of us are struggling. We’re living through a global, collective trauma.

Rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, substance abuse and relationship conflict are at an all-time high. When we talk about mental health, it’s not just about the struggle and hardships. We can promote our mental health by using tools and strategies that are proven from psychology to have better-coping skills, communication skills and relationship skills to manage our emotions differently.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the most empirically supported forms of therapy. It says that our thoughts precede our emotions and behaviors. For example, if we think that we’re out of shape and overweight and we keep telling ourselves that, then through self-fulfilling prophecy, we’re going to self-sabotage and that’s what we will become.

We have to shift that narrative and realize that we’re both the protagonist and also the author of our own life stories. It’s about taking responsibility, having accountability, talking a lot about accessing support, having a vision, developing self-compassion because none of us is perfect and having some of these strategies to succeed physically, emotionally and financially.

If you improve your mental health, if nothing else, you can advocate for yourself better, which helps in the negotiation phase of employment.

It helps in your emotional intelligence, ability to manage your emotional process and to be compassionate, empathic and non-reactive to others. You can be more responsive, thoughtful, more conscious, rather than having knee-jerk reactions. That helps a lot with conscious leadership as a business owner, business leader or even in customer service. If you’re compassionate, cross-culturally sensitive and conscious, you’re going to succeed more because relationships are our keys to success.

When you were talking about improved relationships and the impact that can have on jobs, Crystal and I had seen firsthand how much easier it is to advance in our careers when we have a supportive partner. It’s crazy. First off, we would probably drive people insane if they could listen to us when we were in one of those moments because we would have the same conversation over and over again, but we realized after the fact that we were role-playing how we would handle an interview or a negotiation point with an employer. We would attack it from one million different directions, so when we were finally in there, we knew what to say. It’s not something either of us could have done with our previous spouse.

I married for the second time as well and have a blended family. I’m having a very corrective experience in this partnership. It’s true. When you have a supportive partner, that can be so transformative in every aspect of your life. I do a lot of corporate training and keynote speaking. During the pandemic, much of it has been virtual. I asked people what support they most need because the higher our stresses, the more support and self-care we need. Ninety-five percent of people say they need more emotional support.

When you’re in a partnership where somebody is providing that for you or they want the best for you, they want you to grow and develop, that’s going to set you up for success. The fact that you too do that mutually and I can see you’re both smiling and have love in your eyes. That’s amazing. That’s about collaboration instead of competition or putting one person before the other. It’s caring about each other and wanting the other to grow and succeed.

We could tell some crazy stories that have occurred since we’ve been together. Quitting a job can be like navigating from one job to the next and having the ability to negotiate a salary. Knowing that you have a supportive partner, that you are not the only breadwinner, that you have financial support to be able to have somebody behind you that you know that if you want to negotiate for a higher salary and simultaneously, you’re changing jobs, and you have that support that’s like, “I got your back,” if you want to be like, “No, I’m not going to take the treatment that I’m getting any more. I’m leaving. I am going to go after this other opportunity,” things like that which you can’t do if you don’t have somebody who has your back, it’s crazy how much of a difference that makes.

By the book, I have a bunch of innovative exercises and their wheel exercises. One is about your support network. I have you evaluate who provides you with various types of emotional support, whether it’s emotional, spiritual, physical like your Peloton community would be physical, your physicians. Who provides you with community or family support? How supported do you feel in each area? How can you maybe weed out toxic relationships? You were talking about leaving a marriage that wasn’t healthy for you or good for you or leaving a job that isn’t healthy or good for you or a toxic workplace. We’re going through Great Resignation.

Having the courage and the confidence to find the right people, your chosen family, your partner, the people who are going to lift you and provide you with the support that you need and deserve because we all need it. We’re interdependent as human beings. That’s a big part of success. Self-care is another big part. I have a self-cure wheel that has physical characteristics that you all talk about like nutrition, exercise, sleep, hydration and moderation of substance use.

There are also psychological ways that we provide self-care like self-forgiveness, self-affirmation, self-compassion and lifestyle. We need to unplug from our devices, get out of nature and foster a work-life balance. Many of us are overworked. That’s something that Peloton helps me with as well because if I prioritize that, it sets up my day for success.

Does that mean that you tend to work out at a certain time of day or do you schedule it? How do you fit that in? How do you prioritize it?

I wish that I worked out in the morning and that has been successful for me in the past. I’m going through some pre-menopausal symptoms and mornings are hard for me. I’ve found that I do much better working out between 4:00 and 6:00. I use it after my workday to transition into my evening and I enjoy that. I’ve been trying to start working earlier and wrap up so that I have time for self-care. I give myself a lot of flexibility.

I love the bike and I feel like that’s such a good workout but there are some days where I give my permission to do some stretching, simple yoga practice or go for a walk as long as I’m being active and doing something. What I noticed is my body and posture are changing. Even as a speaker, how I look on stage is different. I’m holding myself differently because my body is stronger from cross-training.

I’m curious what your thoughts are on taking Peloton, yoga classes and being a certified yoga instructor. Is it hard to take a class that you could be teaching? Does it get in your head?

No, I enjoy it. I love learning from different teachers. Chelsea Jackson Roberts is one of my favorites on the yoga program. I love her. Both my daughter and I want her to be our best friend. I like Anna Greenberg, although she’s so intimidating. Some of the poses that she could do, I have to silence my inner critic and practice self-compassion but I love her sleep meditations. I barely ever make it through one because they’re so relaxing. I don’t have a critique for any. There are all different levels. Each teacher has their style and approach, which I like as well.

I always find it interesting when you take classes in something that you could teach. It’s not even criticism but Tom goes into what he calls work mode when we go to any concert because he books concerts for a living. If we go to a concert, he is usually at least for the first twenty minutes or so looking around like, “What’s the crowd like? How does this flow? What do they have different with their drinks?”

“What’s the security procedures like as you enter? What concession are stands doing better than others?” I can’t stop.

You can’t get out of your head.

It’s a good way to get good at ideas and see what works or what doesn’t work. I do that a lot with the meditations because with my speaking engagements, I’ll do guided meditations. Certain cues or ways of saying things, sometimes I might love them and sometimes I might not love them but I make a mental note of what works and what doesn’t work.

Do you go into work mode when you’re out in the world as a psychotherapist like, “I know what’s wrong with this one?”

Yes. It’s very useful. When socializing, people are always afraid that I’m analyzing. It’s hard to have cocktail conversations because people get self-conscious until they realize that I’m only a human being with my struggle. Even in interpersonal situations, I might notice that somebody has some narcissistic features. I have some tools in my toolbox of how to communicate in a way that my feathers don’t get so ruffled.

When you hear people give advice or you go to a therapist, it has to be so personalized like for that person in their circumstance but try to take advice and put it into your life. If I were to read your book and try to take those pieces of it, you almost need a conversation to like, “How do I use it in this specific circumstance?” There’s always nuance that you can’t possibly cover in a book. There’s too much.

Yoga, meditation and psychotherapy is a practice. You learn these tools. It takes time to develop, your emotional intelligence or coping skills. My book is a program with exercises. I’ve identified twelve mindsets that lead to improved mental health and financial health. They’ve been empirically proven for that. I have proven exercises from psychology. They’re short and fun about restructuring your thinking or evaluating yourself.

It’s okay to fall off the wagon. It's part of the process. Share on X

I have a bunch of journaling prompts. As the Amazon reviews are coming in, people are saying they’re finding the exercises to be the most helpful because they can then apply them to their own lives in a very real way and say, “I never thought of it that way. This has changed my approach on dealing with money, my partner or whatever it might be.” That’s meaningful to me but you’re right. We have to cultivate those skills. We all can benefit from therapy or counseling at different points in our lives.

In graduate school, they’ve made all of the therapists and training participate in. It was enormously helpful for me. I continue to go back for tune-ups. I did during the pandemic, in the beginning as well, because these are tough times. I’ve got crazy teenagers and stuff like that, the challenges of life. We all need to take care of ourselves.

Early on in the pandemic, I remember talking to one of my Peloton friends on the phone. I was flipping out about the world. She was like, “I think you’re having an extended panic attack. You need to shut everything down. Stop listening to everything.” She’s a friend I talk to quite often. She goes to therapy and I’ve been to therapy. It was funny because you can spot other people’s stuff easier than you can spot your own.

We all have blinders and those defense mechanisms but I like that. That will have to be added to the diagnostic manual, extended panic attack. You’re right. We can spot it in others. Sometimes that’s why we need our loved ones to have compassionate conversations about mental health. I remember when my mother passed away, one of my best friends was a therapist and she was like, “Joyce, you might benefit from talking to your doctor about medication or an antidepressant.” Even myself, as a therapist, was pretty defensive. I was like, “I’m only grieving.”

A couple of months later, I finally did. Once I was feeling better, I was like, “I wasn’t seeing myself correctly because of the depression and the grief.” We need each other, to be honest. A lot of times, we’re socialized that it’s impolite to talk about other people’s mental health as if we’re implying that they’re crazy but it’s a normal response to feel depressed when you’ve lost a loved one or going through a trauma like that. No shame, no stigma. Health is available and effective.

Tom and I have been pretty outspoken about the fact that mental health should be destigmatized, if nothing else, so that people can get help and feel comfortable getting help. Some people won’t even believe that they need help. Even if you were to tell them, “Pump the brakes. We got an issue here,” some people can’t.

That’s part of the mental health challenge. It’s baked in.

People with more narcissistic traits don’t see an issue. Their problems don’t bother them. They bother other people. One of the biggest issues that I see as a barrier is many people think of depression as sadness or having suicidal thoughts or feelings. They don’t realize that it can be feeling blah, not feeling joyful, feeling apathetic, being irritable, crabby, frustrated or even angry.

That’s the way depression manifests for many people and they might not even realize it. We need to have that mental health awareness. To be mindful of it also with our kids because, in the pandemic, it’s the adolescents and the young adults that are statistically struggling the most from a mental health perspective. I have my kids on Peloton too.

It’s tough and they don’t like exercise.

They get that from me, even the one who’s not biologically related to me.

A little birdie told me you’re not biking, Tom.

He never touched the bike. Not once.

The takeaway here is that if you don’t think mental health should be destigmatized, you’re crazy.

Let’s make that a t-shirt or a bumper sticker. I love it. That is so brilliant and true. It’s all interconnected when we take care of our mental health, physical health, spiritual health, financial health and relational health. They all impact one another. Prioritize our self-care and access that support that we need so that we can be holistically well.

You do meditation and yoga. Do you take any strength classes or anything like that?

I do some of the strength classes. I like the core classes because I’m a mom and that’s not one of my best areas. I appreciate those. I feel to rounds things out. I love on the bike doing the exercises with the weights. Tunde, I love her arms. I have larger arms and I’m proud of my arms. She’s a positive body role model with having bad-ass female arms that looked beautiful.

She should get a tattoo on each one of her biceps. That’s #Goals because we all want to have Tunde arms. They’re amazing.

Strength training is so important.

It keeps you mobile and younger. We were reading a study not too long ago that was saying, “If you want to keep yourself as young as possible, strength training is the one thing that you should do because it’s going to help with everything like being mobile.” I love the bike and tread. I’ve been spending a lot of time running. If you want to stay moving, it’s the strength that helps you stay moving because you do the same positions over and over again, whether it’s running or biking. Any cardio, it’s over and over again. It’s that strength training that allows you to mix it up and use all the planes of motion, which is how you stay fit.

It’s also for bone density as we age. My mother dealt with osteoporosis and I don’t want to. That’s important. I find it humbling. I purposely do a few five cases a year and things like that and shake it up because that lets me know when I’m starting to lose it and what needs to be worked on. That’s helpful too.

I was going to ask what your leaderboard name is.

It’s so boring. It’s Joyce Marter. How boring is that? I was thinking, “Maybe I’ll be Joyful Shrink or something.”

The thing about a leaderboard name is there are so many people. It’s hard to come up with one. You might have to be Joyful Shrink 6 or something like that. Spell it all interesting instead of the normal way. I put normal quotes out there.

Do you have a preferred instructor?

I love Alex Toussaint. He’s hilarious and gets you so pumped up. I love Tunde and Ally Love. Jess Sims, I like doing a lot of her body stretches and things. She does a great job with the full-body stuff. I’m a person who tries to everyone. Cody is hilarious. I’ll give anyone to try. There’s only been 1 or 2 where I’ve been like, “I don’t know.”

That’s a good thing because you need different types of instructors for different types of personalities.

My husband is from North Dakota. He found some guy and I don’t know his name. He plays country music and is laid back. Jason loves him. I like learning some new music too to be able to love it. I play it for my kids and they’re like, “Mom, how do you know?” It keeps you young and cool.

I love all the different music. I had no idea who Lizzo was years ago back before the pandemic and they did a Lizzo. I was like, “What is this?” I was in love. I had the hugest music crush ever. Tom took me to go see her because I wouldn’t shut up about her. It was great.

I pulled strings and got tickets to a sold-out club’s show from Lizzo.

It will probably be the last we will ever see.

That sounds fun, though. I love her too. She’s so cool.

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

Stick with it. Find community and accountability. Get on the app and try different things. If you fall off the wagon, that’s okay. It’s part of the process. If you haven’t written in a while, cut yourself some slack and do the next right thing. Get on for five minutes and continue with it. I’ve never stuck with something for so long. I usually switch to something else. I’ve stuck with it and feel so much better. I say stick with it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you and all of your stuff.

My name is Joyce Marter and that’s the name of my website. It’s JoyceMarter.com and also my name on all social media LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. You name it.

Tell them the name of your book one more time too.

It’s The Financial Mindset Fix. It’s on Amazon, Audible, in bookstores and Barnes & Noble. It’s going to be published globally in a few different languages. I hope it helps a lot of people.

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

We are going to be interviewing Sarah from the podcast Pantsuit Politics. It’s very exciting.

Don’t worry. It doesn’t get all political.

We cover zero politics during this conversation. It is fun and all about Peloton, not stress.

Until then, where can people find you besides on a boat?

They can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe, and then they can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, and the Peloton leaderboard @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 our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

 

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About Joyce Marter

TCO 251 | Mental HealthMy work as a psychotherapist over the past 25 years has been emotionally, intellectually and spiritually rewarding. It has been a profound honor to get to know my clients, to love them and support them as they have had the courage to take an honest look at themselves and to make brave changes to welcome greater health, wellness and prosperity. It has been an enormous blessing to learn from my clients and their experiences, which has had a profound impact on my own life.

 

 

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