• We recap the latest earnings call.
• Lanebreak is officially on Tread+.
• Peloton to host Black History Month virtual community event.
• Peloton’s new Black History Month classes.
• PSNY retail getting a redesign.
• Peloton Originals now available on equipment.
• Peloton went live with Timbaland on TikTok.
• Peloton workers awarded $2.5 million in class action settlement.
• Kristin McGee takes to the stage.
• Callie Gullickson has last live BootCamp before maternity leave.
• Cody Rigsby addressed technical difficulties on IG.
• New York Yankee Aaron Judge spotted in a Tunde class.
• Wahoo releases treadmill with hands-free controls.
• TCO Top 5.
• This week at Peloton.
• Rebecca Kennedy announces new 4-day split strength program.
• London Calling 2024 dates announced.
• ‘You Can Row’ Bootcamp announced.
• Birthdays – Daniel McKenna (2/4).

All this plus our interview with Billy Lenoir.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton Workers Awarded $2.5 Million Plus Our Interview With Billy Lenoir

I won’t ask how your day is going because I know it sucks, like next-level sucks. If we sound cranky, that’s why. We will try not to be. Let’s jump right into stuff. Just a reminder that the book club is coming up here soon. This month’s book, because you can’t read a book a week. What are you, Crystal? Just an update on how our book race ended.

I was on a race?

Not for you because you nail it.

I didn’t know we were racing.

I won’t tell you we were racing because you’re so competitive. You would call in sick to work and read all day and be like, “I’m done.” I was trying to keep the playing field level. I was 40% when you started and you finished it two days before I did. That’s how that played out. That’s why I don’t do the book club. As I said before, that’s the only book I would ever read. I would only ever read book club books.

In all fairness that was a long book.

I didn’t even say it. You were reading Ross Rayburn’s book on the side. You were reading with one eye tied behind your back. I shouldn’t say that. We might have a one-eyed listener. Sandy Duncan will be very upset with me. Even if you had a handicap, you were reading another book in addition to the book. I was only reading the one book and you still beat me.

You did have that one long day at work that I got quite a bit of reading, and there was the night that I was awake for three hours in the middle of the night.

I’m just saying you beat me. Anyway, the book in the book club that I will not be reading, no reflection on the book itself, is Ross Rayburn’s Turning Inward. Ross will be joining us. If you haven’t participated in a book club yet, what better initiation than to come and hang out with us and Ross. You can get all that over at our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. This is where you’re like, “I don’t want to pay money to do that.” I’m like, “But the book club is all at the free level. You don’t have to give us money to participate in the book club. You’ll have to give Ross money unless you get it from the library.

I don’t think it’s in our library. We shouldn’t say any library, but it wasn’t our library.

You can find all this information over at our Patreon for free. You don’t have to sign up for anything. It’s all over there. We would love to have you on the 13th.

You do need to register for this. We have a hard limit of 100 people. We want to make sure of that.

That’s a Zoom limit. Not a Ross limit.

Ross would never do that. I’m glad you clarify that.

We think that’s what Zoom’s max is at.

We want people who want to be there to be there for sure.

The next item up for bid is Bingo.

Instructor Bingo number one is Ben Alldis. Can you believe this is week five?

I can’t believe it.

I sense sarcasm.

I am shocked.

At least you’re not appalled.

No, I’m not appalled. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

What a great question. Let me go find the answer.

First off, we will have the earnings call recap. I know that’s one of the things on the list.

We also have an interview with Billy Lenoir. He has been on the show before but this time, he’s had a massive amount of weight loss and he is sharing with us his journey. It’s going to be an incredibly fascinating conversation. We also have a bunch of news that came in from Peloton. We’re going to be talking about Lanebreak. We’re going to be talking about Black History Month. We’re going to be talking about PSNY getting a complete redesign. We also have a lawsuit update. We have instructor in the news. We have a celebrity sighting, an artist series mention, and competitor news. We have another Bingo mention later, so make sure you’re paying attention, and a bunch of content that we are going to talk about as well.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeart. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s super helpful and we greatly appreciate it. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. It’s a great way to stay up to date on things throughout the week.

You can also watch these episodes on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Sign up for our newsletter over at our website TheClipOut.com. Get all the links and stuff sent to you. Finally, if you can’t get enough of us, we have a Patreon over at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5 a month, you get these episodes ad-free. If we get them early, you get them early and you get bonus content. Every week, we have all this stuff that we didn’t have time to fit in this episode, the overflow. We talk about that stuff over in the bonus episode. They’re only 20 to 30 minutes of extra content for you. If you can’t get enough of us or Peloton, it’s over there. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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We got done listening to the earnings call. By we, I mean Crystal, while I napped in my chair. I’m glad you are intrigued and paying attention while I drift off to dreamland to the clickety-clack of you taking notes and like, “This is dry.” You then turn it into things like, “No, here’s what it means. I will translate this from stock talk into people.”

I’m so excited right now because Barry talked about the Tread+. He said he is very excited about the content that is coming. They filmed the entire New York City Marathon course in 3D, and they captured the metadata, so when they release this content this spring or the summer, you’re going to have the ability to be on the course in your Tread and Tread+. It is going to automatically change to the same elevation level that is on the actual course.

Compared to other marathons, The New York City Marathon is probably relatively flat, right?

No, it’s known to be very hilly.

I would have thought that because it’s all paved streets, it wouldn’t have been that bad.

There is a lot of that, of course, but there are sections. For instance, the bridges are always something that people talk about. There are hills that people speak of. I think it’s also known for being hilly because there are hills at the end of the course. I am not intimately familiar with how it all works. I just know what people have told me, but I’m excited to learn all about it.

The hills will no longer be hidden.

He said he hopes to expand this to other marathons as well.

You have to assume that’s what they’re doing. You don’t do all that for one thing.

They have that partnership with the New York Runner. We can foresee the potential for additional partnerships in the future.

I would think also that it opens up the idea of what a scenic run could be like. All of a sudden, we do a scenic run around the rim of the Grand Canyon or things of that nature.

It’s interesting that you say that because somebody asks the question about how the engagement mix is changing. What does that look like? He talked about the fact that they saw a significant amount of people engaging with the platform when they added entertainment like YouTube and NBA League Pass. Those are the two that he specifically mentioned, especially on the tread, which I find interesting because there are so far fewer treads out there than there are bikes.

That makes total sense because treadmill users are used to getting on a treadmill and watching a TV like that, so that’s a very common usage of the tread. That’s always something they’ve struggled with in terms of getting people to buy treads that aren’t already Peloton members. People feel like, “I don’t need someone to tell me how to run.” I’m not saying that’s true but that’s the perception, especially for lifelong runners. They’re like, “I’ve been running for twenty years.” If all of a sudden they’re like, “There are classes here if you want them,” and maybe you already have a bike, so you’re already paying a membership. Now, you don’t have to look off in the corner to watch the basketball game or Stranger Things. It’s right in front of you. That’s going to have an appeal.

There are probably a lot of homes, I’m painting with a broad brush, where the wife likes to spin and the man wants the treadmill. Now it’s like, “If we already have a Peloton bike with a membership and we’re paying for it anyway and it’s time for a new treadmill, I might as well get a Peloton treadmill,” and then if she wants to take some of these classes, she can. We already paid for it and I have this other content that’s right in front of my face and I don’t need to hang this TV on the wall anymore.

There’s so much I want to say. I’m sorry. I’m trying to keep it all in my head while you go on and on, but you say you want me to tell you this stuff. He also talked about how that content is changing but they still have a lot to do that will bring people in. He talked about the personalization and that they’ve made an impact there. They made headway, but they still have a lot more that they want to do. As they do that, he expects that AI is going to have a huge impact on that. He leaned into that sentence. I find that interesting.

Everything that you said was true, but it’s also interesting that he talked about the fact that the number of people who wanted Tread+ was a lot higher than they expected. He was also surprised that it has ignited interest in the tread as well. They were surprised by that. The interesting thing here is that we still have all that existing inventory on the Tread+, but they expect over time that’s going to switch over. They’re also concerned they’re not going to be able to meet the demand long-term. I found that interesting as well.

With the reintroduction of the Tread+, it makes the tread look like a much greater value proposition.

On that note, as far as the value proposition, he mentioned a couple of times how Peloton is expected, especially starting this year, he mentioned this in conjunction with the content coming out for the marathon, that they are going to be leaning into sports performance and high-performance athletes. He mentioned that a couple of times. I am so excited about that because something that I have long said that Peloton needs to do is programming. Help people get to the next level. It’s great that you offer these billions of classes. They’re amazing classes, but help people figure out how they will take it to the next level.

I’m hopeful that’s what he’s talking about. I don’t know if that’s what he’s talking about. On that note, he also said that for the last two years, they’ve been busy saving themselves. They haven’t worked on innovation and they have a lot of things that are in the works right now that are going to be innovation. He was super vague, but Barry doesn’t usually get excited and he was excited. I was excited about his excitement. His voice remained neutral, his very robot voice, but I could hear that he kept saying it.

None of us knows what that means, but my brain gets excited thinking about the potential for that. He talked about product innovation specifically because he mentioned the Row and Tread+. The Row is the last big product innovation that we came out and it has pretty much been sold to existing users. It hasn’t been sold that much to people outside of the Peloton universe.

That is not shocking. There’s not a huge clamor for rowers because it has always been a pretty niche segment.

The other thing that is exciting to me is that the last time we had a quarterly call, we talked about the fact that Lululemon was expecting in the second quarter to have $10 million coming in because of that studio partnership. They performed slightly better than they thought and that was only two months. This next time, we’re going to have three months. That’s exciting.

That was largely due to your purchases, I believe.

This is the studio context.

I thought these were those legging sales.

I haven’t bought that much Lulu. I don’t think I’ve bought anything Lulu. He also talked about TikTok, which I was curious to hear about. They don’t see it in the same way as the partnership they do with Lululemon. They see it as a marketing partnership.

That makes sense.

It does but it’s also going to be interesting because, with Lululemon, there are very tangible dollars associated with that. When you switch over to TikTok, it’s not. It’s all about whether it’s bringing in new people or not bringing in new people. The very first live class they did brought in 130,000 views. Barry was like, “Is that good? We could do a lot better, but yeah.” That’s not that many views on TikTok

It’s also important because they’re bringing in a new demo. You and I have talked about this before. They are going to be leaning into that. I think this is super important to make sure people know. Anyone tuning in out there, spread the word because you know we’re going to be hearing about this. The big thing that came out on TikTok yesterday was that they had to change all of their music rights. Peloton is not impacted at all. They are fully licensed with all partners. The music that is used for Peloton is not affected on TikTok. That’s a very big deal.

The music that’s getting affected on TikTok is when you can select a song that’s baked into the app itself. Peloton has their own licensing agreement because they’re an 800-pound gorilla. They’re like, “Not our problem.”

Going back to the product Innovation. Barry said that over the next two years, there are going to be significant product innovations that he feels have a real shot at substantially changing the growth trajectory of Peloton. That is a bold statement.

The immortal words of Vincent Vega, “That’s a bold statement.” That’s a five-dollar milkshake.

They must have been in Saint Martin. Actually, it wasn’t in St. Martin that that happened. Anyway, Barry also talked about how overall hardware sales have been down, like below what they expected. Some of this, he attributed to the seat recall that happened last year. It was on the version one bike. I thought it was an interesting note that he made. Since then, the love of that bike has not rebounded. That has continued to be soft. Now the Bike+ growth is very different. The treadmill has lots of growth. All of that is great news.

I wonder if that’s indicative of the fact that the economy is starting to rebound. People aren’t as price-motivated. They’re looking at Bike versus Bike+. They’re like, “If I’m going to go down this road for the extra $800,” I don’t even know what the differential is, “I might as well go ahead and get the nicer one and be done.” Eighteen months ago when inflation was at 10%, unemployment was a lot higher and everything felt a lot wonkier, if you are going to pull the trigger, you’re going to be like, “Let’s just get the cheaper one.”

To that point, another thing that he also said was rentals of bikes are way up. That continues to be a huge growth driver. Fitness as a service continues to drive as well. The bike rental, I also thought was interesting because they recently made it so that you could buy your own bike without having to get a customer service representative involved. You can do it all in the app now. That’s interesting because the number of people who bought their bike was up 11% this quarter. I thought that was fascinating too. That’s a that’s a big deal.

I wanted to go back to partnerships. This was in the letter. He did not talk about it on the call. Nobody asked about it, which I was surprised at. The Michigan partnership was a big dud. They said that they did not get the number of sales from people who love Michigan the way they thought they would so they are not going to be partnering with any other schools and going down that road. It’s not happening.

It’s probably a situation where if you already have a Peloton bike, you’re not going to scrap the bike to get a branded one. You’re targeting people who love Michigan and also haven’t bought a bike yet. That’s probably a pretty narrow sliver. I also wonder if it would work better with a larger brand. The number of Michigan alumni who are looking for Pelotons is probably pretty small nationwide. What if you could buy a Star Wars-themed Peloton that looked like a Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, or R2-D2? Now you’re going after a much larger fan base.

With the way that they’ve been doing partnerships, I could see something like that or conversations being had or they’re trying to find the right combination. That would be cool.

Even a Major League sports team.

I thought it was weird, but people love their college sports. I don’t understand it.

They do and they’re passionate. It’s wide but not deep. I don’t know if a college team is ever going to have as large of a fan base as the New York Yankees or the Saint Louis Cardinals.

I don’t want the Cardinals.

I think a lot of people would, but we don’t. We might look at an R2-D2 one.

That would be fun. I would be on board with that. Ewok bike or something would be so cute.

It’d be so fuzzy. The fur would get all matted from the sweat. You’re like, “Smells like indoor in here.”

I also thought it was interesting talking about Tread+ and how people are excited about it. CNN voted that the Tread+ is the best overall tread for 2024. That should help. That’s a big deal. That’s not one of these stupid little articles where they get a top-ten list that everybody paid for. This is a lot bigger. He vaguely talked about more geographical expansion, but it was super vague. This particular call was all about product innovation. That’s what I kept hearing. That was a big thing that stood out to me. I’m excited about that. We talked about how we saw Tunde in a picture, and she had that barbell and a bench behind her.

It popped up again.

Logan was on there with the same type of pictures with a bench and barbell. Robin made a note in one of her classes that there was exciting content coming in the spring for those willing to put in the work. Something big is coming.

Originally, with Tunde, we were debating internally that maybe this is a Nike photo shoot. Seeing Logan with it confirms that it’s not.

Tunde also had a Peloton sports bra. I just want to say that people who questioned that, can say that again. I agree with Logan doing that and I know that Robin didn’t necessarily have to be commenting on that but that seems right up her alley. She likes to lift heavy. I’ve seen her videos.

I have seen her abs.

You don’t get abs like that by not lifting heavy. I hope they’re leaning into that. That would be exciting. He also talked about a vector for growth, gamification, and corporate wellness We can expect to see lots of growth with that as well. As far as the communities, he talked about growing. There’s 55% of unaided brand awareness in the United States. It’s something like 37% in the UK and it’s way smaller than that in other places. He mentioned the LatinX community also. I’m not even saying this year or this next quarter, but over time, we’re going to be seeing continued expansion probably in the LatinX community.

Is that everything?

I think so. If you want to read all the numbers, go look at the financials. I don’t get excited about that stuff. Overall, they did slightly better than they thought they would. There are good reasons for that. They also redid all of their financials to say that Q3 is probably going to be down a little bit. Q4 is now where they’re going to hit their free cashflow breakeven point. They hope to do that this quarter. It’s now going to be Q4.

They went into all the reasons for that. At the end of the day, it’s because the hardware sales were less than expected and other things were happening. They made it sound like because they are going to be continuing to work on this product innovation, continuing to push the app, and continuing to work on corporate wellness, there’s going to be this flow forward in the other direction. That’s why they think they’re going to have a break-even or positive free cashflow by the end of Q4.

It will be interesting to see what that does to the financial community’s opinion when it hits.

Definitely, but right now, I’m super excited about this course that’s coming out. They can’t get it out fast enough. Bring it on. I’m ready.

 ‐‐‐

Lanebreak is officially on Tread+.

I’ve already taken five classes. It was a lot of fun. I’ve been playing around with it. I’ve taken a walking class. I’ve taken what they call light, and then I did a moderate one. It’s walking moderate, and then it goes expert and advanced maybe.

The final level is “Okay go.“

It’s funny because I don’t know what the top speed is for walking. It goes off the top of my head, but I think it’s 4.5 or maybe 5 and then they go up from there. Light goes to 6.5 and then moderate is 7.5. I may have all these numbers wrong. I’m just giving you an idea. You do want to pick a good level for you because you have to be able to hit the correct speeds and you don’t want to be falling off the treadmill or something, but it is so much fun. I love it. My favorite so far has been the Linkin Park classes and it was Linkin Park remixes. It was only 20 minutes but what a workout.

I wasn’t dancing but I was running fast. It’s a lot of fun. I know people who have a regular tread and have had Lanebreak for a while. This is not new to them. For those of you with Tread+ or who are getting ready to buy them or maybe they’ve been on order and you haven’t gotten it yet, you have this to look forward to. It is so much fun. I love it.

Black History Month is upon us and Peloton is celebrating it with a virtual community event.

It takes place on the 15th of February. It’s virtual which is cool because that means that no matter where you are in the world, you can join in. Register and join these ladies. This is going to be Tunde, Jess Sims, and Kirsten Ferguson. They are going to be talking about friendship, how to rely on each other, and how having people in your squad allows you to deal better with the shit that life gives. They said it a lot better than that in the marketing, but I was trying to make it real for you. I thought that was fun.

While we’re talking about Black History Month’s virtual event, I thought it would be a good time to talk about Black History Month classes that they got coming at you.

This particular article is a very specific amount of classes. It’s classes from the 23rd through the 29th of February and it is invite-only live in studio classes. You had to be invited. Obviously, they couldn’t invite everybody. Our Clip Out helper bee, Nadia, wrote this and she has in the very first paragraph that she was not invited and she is salty about it. At any rate, this will be a lot of fun. There are classes with Katie and Denis. There are also classes with Alex, Ally Love, and Tunde.

I don’t want to make a big deal about this but I feel like it’s my job to also mention that when I was perusing the schedule, there were not a lot of new Black History Month classes. There’s a lot of encore going on. I don’t know if that means they’re going to be sprinkling some things in that aren’t on there yet. They have been known to do that. I don’t think we should jump to conclusions but I felt like there was not the breath of options this month that there have been in the past.

The retail area at the PSNY location is getting a revamp.

If you’ve been to the PSNY location, you might remember that the retail area is pretty small. It’s very tiny. They have completely redesigned it. Becs Gentry posted moments ago a video and it takes up that entire top area.

That makes sense. It felt like there was so much wasted space because there was this little tiny area with four t-shirts and then there was this huge area with some couches and stuff. I was like, “This seems like an odd configuration.”

Brand new shops. The next time you pop into the PSNY, you have many more opportunities to buy everything.

Will they have fewer places to sit? Will I still be able to sit somewhere?

I don’t know. I couldn’t see that. I couldn’t see the spot so I didn’t pay attention to that. Honestly, my brain is so scrambled that it took me so long to figure out this was the top floor. I couldn’t even get that.

Will there still be food right next to the place?

I didn’t see that either.

That’s the important thing.

If they only had it on what I would call the far wall or if it’s that whole half, there would still be plenty of room behind you for the food and the seating area. It may be still there. I don’t know. I didn’t absorb it as well as I should have. I apologize.

There has to be a food court.

I know, but you didn’t like it anyway, so I don’t know why you do now.

It’s because everything there was Pepsi. That was my complaint. There was no Coke.

When we were in London you were also very unhappy with the hot cocoa offering.

The French fry game is on point, but the hot chocolate is garbage.

I think that was a Peloton thing.

The other hot chocolate we had was pretty bad too, but the Peloton hot chocolate was awful. It was just brown water.

I have also heard people complain about the temperature of the smoothies there. I have not had one in years since they moved to the new studio. The old studio was fine with smoothies, but I haven’t had one from the new place.

I don’t do smoothies because it might accidentally be healthy and whatnot.

It has fruit in it.

I’m not prepared to take that risk, but the hot chocolate was awful. I was like, “Did they outsource the hot chocolate to Echelon?” That was what I thought. It was so bad. Peloton Originals are now available on equipment.

Susie Chan’s documentary dropped and of course, I watched it instantaneously. I was over on YouTube watching the premiere while I was doing ten other things. I didn’t actually watch it like watching it, but I heard it and absorbed a lot of it. We talked about this a little bit, but now it’s on the actual equipment. If you go and you want to take a class on your treadmill, bike, Bike+, or whatever, you’re going to be able to watch this while you’re taking a class. It’s pretty cool, but the other interesting thing is that some people are reporting they can’t get to entertainment at all on their tablets. I think a few things are going on. Number one, don’t forget that these are super old bikes.

That was my first thought. They are Gen-1 tablets.

Those are no longer being serviced and soon will be completely obsolete. You have an opportunity to upgrade. You do have to pay for it because that’s how new technology works, but some people who don’t have the first-generation bike are saying they’re having issues with it. I’m not 100% clear on what’s going on there. Some people are saying they have entertainment but they’re only seeing Netflix. They’re not seeing anything else, for example. For other people, this seems to be unrelated but related to the tablet.

Some people are reporting to me that they will get on the tablet with a newer bike and all of a sudden, the entire right bottom of the screen is no longer responsive when they try to click on it. Apparently, the calls to Peloton have gone unanswered as far as like, “Here’s a resolution, we’re rolling something out, or here’s how it goes.” They’re telling people they need to buy a new tablet. I was asked, “Do you have any advice?” I would escalate. I would not accept that. If multiple people are experiencing that with a tablet, then something else is happening.

That makes sense. I saw someone in the OPP. I thought this was funny. They were complaining because the keyboard on your screen on a piece of equipment where you get to type stuff in, the Y and the Z had switched places.

That’s insane.

That was my first thought. I was like, “That’s weird.” It turns out it’s purposeful because the person had accidentally switched it to the German keyboard, and the German keyboard inversed the Y and the Z.

That’s fascinating for so many reasons. They don’t have QWERTY?

I guess they have a QWERTZ keyboard, not a QWERTY keyboard. I guess the Y is there because we use Y a lot. That’s a high-usage position. They use the Z more than the Y and so they flipped it. When the keyboard was originally designed for typewriters, the keyboard was not designed to make you type as fast as possible. The keyboard is designed to make you type as fast as possible without jamming up all the little hammers. If you typed too fast on the old-school manual typewriters, those keys would lock up.

Everybody needs help for something. You get to a point where enough is enough. Share on X

I do remember that.

If you ever had an old one, if you push all the keys at once, they get all locked up. As technology got better and it no longer mattered, it’s what everybody gets used to and nobody wants to relearn to type because it sucked enough the first time so they’ve left it alone, but it’s not the most efficient way to have a keyboard operate. It’s a leftover vestige of that but in Germany, they flipped those two keys. There’s a little piece of useless trivia, but at least for once, my useless trivia was Peloton adjacent. It only took seven years.

It wasn’t pop culture. That’s fascinating.

I know other things sometimes.

I also want to mention something about these Peloton Originals. We’ve talked about this, but all of Peloton’s internal content that they have created is out there now on the tablet on the equipment. If you take the Badwater 135 class, then you get a Badwater 135 badge.

In honor of Badwater, they will send you some of their hot chocolate because it’s bad water.

That’s hilarious. I was thinking that they would send you sand from the desert. We were in two very different places.

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You might recall a while back that Peloton was embroiled in a lawsuit with some of the workers about overtime compensation or more specifically, lack thereof.

We do have an update. As of January 30th, Peloton workers had a $2.5 million wage settlement that was given the final go-ahead. For those of you who are keeping track or keeping score for what’s going to come up on the earnings call, this is sure to be one of those things. I know by the time you hear me talking about this, you’ll already know the answer to that but I don’t at this moment.

I would think that in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a lot of money for Peloton.

It will affect the bottom line. It depends on where they put it. Accounting is funky.

I look at it’s like that’s settled in behind them and $2.5 million in the grand scheme of things is a small amount of money for a company of this size.

It’s not, but when you say $2 million here a little $2 million there.

They can take all that money they got from selling the Ohio plant.

That’s what I’m saying.

I’m glad those people got their money.

I am too. Hopefully, going forward, it will all be fixed. Did those people get their money or did the lawyers get their money?

I’m sure lawyers have a good chunk of it. Coming up after this, we’re going to have instructors in the news. We’re going to tell you which instructor has taken it to the stage to do some rocking out. Stick around.

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Kristin McGee was caught doing a little rocking out.

She is your favorite yogi by day, but she is your favorite singer by night. She decided to get up on stage and it was a one-night-only event, but she had some friends who were putting together a band and they were like, “We need some vocals.” She was like, “I’ll do it.” She’s been practicing and she has sung before but not like she made a career out of it. She decided to try it and she had a lot of fun. Now, she thinks she might be doing some more of that.

Do we know what she sang? Do you know?

I don’t know what she sang because I didn’t see a set list or anything. I do know that one of our helper bees had a friend who was in the actual club watching and that Kristin was amazing. For what that’s worth.

I’m assuming it’s rock music based on the leather pants.

I would agree. She does wear black leather a lot though.

She did all of the Sandy songs from Greece.

I’m going to go with rock. They have the lights behind them and everything.

All bands have lights or you couldn’t see them.

Never mind. I’m not in the mood to play today. I know you’re joking.

Callie Gullickson did her last bike bootcamp before maternity leave.

It was specifically bike bootcamp because she couldn’t change her shoes. It’s getting too difficult to change her shoes because of her pregnancy belly. She still will be teaching classes up until maternity leave, but this is the last live bike bootcamp. I just wanted to let people know that her time for maternity leave is coming up soon. Get those classes with Callie while you can and then of course, she’ll be back and you get to do it all over again.

Peloton has been having some technical issues as of late.

It’s been weird. Classes are supposed to start at X time and then maybe fifteen minutes later is when they actually start, or they’ll be like, “Just kidding. It’s an hour from now.” Cody was supposed to do a special edition of XOXO to celebrate his four years at Peloton.

Four? That can’t be right.

I know. That seems too young, doesn’t it? That’s what I was told. I did not verify this information. At any rate, let’s just say to celebrate his time at Peloton. Maybe it’s four years of doing XOXO.

That would be predating the pandemic.

You’re right. Maybe it’s four years of XOXO

That makes more sense.

At any rate, the whole point that I’m trying to get to is that the class never actually happened. He was on there and people couldn’t get in, and then it disappeared from the schedule, and then another class disappeared from the schedule. There were posts where people got into the class and there were two people in the class too.

They’re going back to the dry-erase board back in the day, kicking in old school.

Cody took to the IG to apologize and say that they were rescheduling and so it’s going to happen. It’s all going to be okay, but it is weird that they’re having all these technical difficulties lately. It’s at least the third major issue with a live class lately that I am aware of. I’m not saying that’s all that has occurred. It has been a problem. I don’t know what’s going on over there.

How about points to me though for knowing that there’s no way he’s only been there four years?

That’s a good catch.

I am on it. I’m not on the bike, but I’m on the information.

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We had a celebrity sighting in one of Tunde’s classes, a baseball player of some ilk.

He is a New York Yankee and his name is Aaron Judge. I will start off by saying thank you, Nikki, for the details.

We had all these details about who this guy was. I was like, “It has Nikki written all over it.” It’s Nikki being like, “Don’t look like an idiot about the sports stuff. Let me write it down for you.”

Here’s what Nikki has to say about Aaron Judge. He is a right fielder. In 2022, he set the American League record for most home runs in a single season at 62, breaking Roger Maris’s 61-year-old record. Also, he signed a nine-year contract with the Yankees in 2022 for $360 million. He does look huge in this photo because he is 6’7” and 282 pounds. The girl next to him looks like a doll. He’s ginormous.

The one on the other side looks like an action figure. It’s even smaller.

That’s pretty cool. That’s fun.

Coming up after this, we’re going to give you an insight into your next artist series so stick around.

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By the time you hear this, it will have already occurred, but Timbaland is going live with Peloton on TikTok and telling us about that on Instagram.

You have to cross-promote.

I will be commenting on it via Friendster.

Is that how you say it? Timbaland?

I always feel dumb saying Salt and Peppa but I know that’s what you’re supposed to say. I feel 100 years old.

It doesn’t come out right.

We were talking about this for some odd reasons. You were like, “Didn’t he do a bunch of songs with Justin Timberlake?” You were like, “I think you’re getting them mix-up because they both have Timber in the name.” I was like, “I could be wrong. I don’t know.” Later on the day, I looked it up and it was like he produced Cry Me A River and his first 3 or 4 records. I was all proud of myself for it and I was like, “I’m still in touch with current music,” and then I realized that song came out 22 years ago.

For anyone who needed to be sad, that song came out 22 years ago.

If I have to know that pop music like Justin Timberlake is 22 years old, you need to know that too. I feel like John Mulaney got a joke where somebody asked him, “How old are you?” He was like, “How old am I? I was once on the phone with a Blockbuster video. That’s how old.”

We do know that there is going to be an artist series. If you check overhead to the schedule, there’s a crap ton of classes coming up that are all Timbaland. They haven’t put out the official list. We’re waiting for that to do our official announcement, but it is coming. They were talking on TikTok all about wellness. If you missed it, you can pop on over to TikTok and catch all the latest.

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We have a new tread entering the marketplace, Wahoo Kicker Run. It sounds interesting but not interesting enough for me to do it. It features hands-free changes in pace.

I did not read how this works. I just saw that it’s hands-free, but I don’t understand what it knows. There’s a tablet attached to it. Is it from the tablet and it’s their programming and you can hook it up to anything? There are questions I have because I did not take the time to read this.

It looks small.

It does look small but then again mine is a beast because I have the plus and it’s ginormous. Not all treadmills are that big. It’s also hard to tell since you don’t have anything around it to give scale.

For sure, but it looks like the base doesn’t look that long compared to the rest of it.

I do agree.

They priced it $5,000.

Those look like some slats up there. “Responsive surface for natural energy return to help propel runners forward at a normal outdoor pace.”

It says, “With run-free mode, a high-speed motor reacts in milliseconds to the runner’s position on the running surface, allowing natural pace changes without touching the control.” I guess you control how fast you run by running.

I am intrigued. It’s been a while since I’ve been intrigued enough to even say I’m intrigued by a treadmill.

It sounds interesting. Just to be clear, not interesting enough for me to do it, but interesting.

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The second Bingo call-out for this week is Leanne Hainsby. You get that, because we did Ben.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

These things happen.

In the TCO Top Five, we ask you what your favorite classes are. We compile them and then yell them back at you, and then you can maybe learn some new stuff. That sounds interesting to you without scrolling forever before you take a class.

The first one is a favorite Peloton core strength and it comes from Helper Bee Nikki. This class is a Rebecca Kennedy class. It’s a 5-minute core strength from November 24, 2023. Nikki said, “It’s all on the floor and it’s so spicy. It’s very accessible to all levels but by no means is it easy. if your abs aren’t burning by three minutes, you’re doing it wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever repeated a Peloton class as much as I repeat this one.” I appreciate that.

Number two is your favorite Peloton back-to-back comeback rides.

We have the January 23rd 20-minute ‘80s ride and the 20-minute ‘90s rock ride with Jenn Sherman. These were taped at the same time and our audience loved both. Helper Bee Darcy made a call. We’re doing them both. Right after Jenn returned, this was one of her first comeback classes. Kim Mount, also known as Rising Sparkle, said, “JSS coming back rides were my fave. After having to fight back after surgery for cancer multiple times this year, coming back is hard even when it’s all you want to do. I loved those and her honesty about coming back.” Karen Alen Gretty agreed and said, “Jenn Sherman’s 20-minute rides were so inspiring, knowing how humbling comebacks can be after surgery. She was so relatable.” That’s amazing. You guys are so cool. That’s a very good point. Coming back is hard.

Number three is your favorite Peloton artist series ride.

Everyone is raving about this class. It’s the 30-minute Pink ride with Robin Arzon. Also, if you look closely, Tom is in this class.

No. I do not think that guy looks like me. He’s bald and has a goatee.

Danielle, I know you’re listening. It does and I agree with Danielle. Linda Hawk said that it’s so good. She’d already taken it twice. “Robin’s Pink ride was amazing. She was motivational and talked about how Pink’s music spoke to her and helped her through some tough times. The class plays in sync with the music perfectly too.” She’s taking it twice. Jennifer Robinson said, “Robin has so many words of wisdom, but the end hit me. I’m trying to become who I needed to be when I was growing up.” That is nice.

Number four is your favorite Peloton hike.

It’s the first-ever 60-minute hike. This took place on January 27th. It was with Rebecca Kennedy. Sonia Norman said that the hikes are her favorite trek classes, and she’s so glad we finally got a 60-minute one. “Hope they do more.” Amanda Van Buren added that the playlist was awesome and loved Rebecca’s positivity. “I hope they do more.” I have no idea what that symbol was. What is that? Is that an okay?

Yeah.

I think I need my spectacles.

Do you want to borrow my readers?

I do not.

Number five, your favorite Peloton unstackable.

This was a ‘90s rock ride, 30 minutes with Emma Lovewell. This came from Dwayne Pearson. He said that it’s relative. He said that this might have been stackable in his 20s, but unstackable in his 50s. This particular class made him feel young again, and then he was exhausted as he was moving as if he was 20 years old, but he’s 50 so he’s tired out.

Lots of new stuff on This Week at Peloton.

Make sure you mark your calendars for February 3rd. That’s going to be the next 120-minute Power Zone Endurance ride with Matt Wilpers. People have been so excited about those once a quarter, and then we have the Club Bangers with Alex Toussaint. That was a Club Bangers run. We also have new gym plans that are dropping and we have a new prenatal core program for new moms. That one has some new instructors with it too. I think that’s well. We think that it’s going to, and then we have Trance Music Rides with Eric and Charlotte as well. That’s pretty cool.

Rebecca Kennedy has announced a new four-day split training thing.

Here’s the deal. Normally, these are either programs or they are collections. This is neither. That’s why we are calling it out because she’s specifically designed it so that you can take them whenever you want to. With the program, you have to follow Peloton’s timeline. If you do a collection, then you could do a collection, but then it’s small. If we want to see it in a collection, we’re going to have to ask Pelton, “Put this in a collection specifically for this.” She has four classes coming. The first class has dropped. It was an upper body from January 24th. The rest of them are coming, but they’re all going to be dropping by February 14th at the latest.

You're doing what you have to do to fix your life. Who cares what anybody thinks? Share on X

We will update our article with all four of those classes. You’re going to have two upper-body days, a full-body day, and you’re going to have a lower-body day. These are all about lifting heavy and we need that, ladies. This is awesome, and I am so glad that Rebecca is doing that. If you’re taking her current five-day split, she recommends doing the five-day split and combining it right after you go right into the four-day split. It’s a great one-two punch for you.

The London Calling 2024 dates have been announced.

They have added more details. We know that it’s going to be March 30th, June 29th, October 5th, and November 30th. We think we’re going to see a lot more panels and things like that. They already had a lot of that stuff, but we think that’s going to be even bigger this year. It is all about the German community.

Finally, we have a new you-can-row bootcamp program.

You might have seen last week that I posted a TikTok video and everywhere else video that Katie Wang had a surprise that she was bringing to everybody last Friday. We had a lot of guesses as to what it was going to be. We thought it might be string since Callie is going to be going out on maternity leave soon, but it was a you-can-row boot camp. The cool interesting part of this is she has guest instructors coming in to do the strength in between the rows. She’s doing the rowing and then somebody else will come in like Sims. I don’t know if it’s for sure working that way with Rad and Adrian, but I believe that it is. That’s the last I saw.

They should have had Callie to change her shoes.

I think she is. It’s already been filmed so she can do the strength part.

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Finally, we have one birthday. It’s not from a current Peloton instructor, but from a former Peloton instructor who generated quite a bit of news on his way out the door. It is Daniel McKenna’s birthday on February 4th. If you’re a fan, be sure and tell him happy birthday.

It’s interesting because I saw this week that people were already telling him happy birthday. I don’t know if we got the date wrong or if they got the date wrong but somebody already said happy birthday to him.

Maybe they want to be first.

That’s possible

Coming up after this, we have our interview with Billy Lenoir. He’s lost a ton of weight with gastric bypass surgery. He’s going to tell us all about it and how he incorporates Peloton on his continuing weight loss journey so stick around.

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Joining us is Billy Lenoir.

It’s been a while since we’ve had you on the show.

Do you know what number you are?

Episode 44.

That was early in.

I thought I knew what my life was doing at that time and obviously, I didn’t.

I tell people all the time, “The one thing that you know for sure that’s going to happen is you’re going to get thrown a curve ball.”

You were in town for work, but you’ve had some changes in your fitness journey. We thought we’d talk to you about what you’ve been going through.

When I was on with you guys, I had lost quite a bit of weight, but then my health took a massive turn over the next couple of years. The weight came back and a ton more came back on. I went through two and a half years of back-to-back, literally all kinds of stuff from a car wreck and two surgeries to nasal surgery to high blood pressure. I need some immunity stuff done to my blood to get my boosters back and everything like that. It’s been crazy. In March of 2023, I couldn’t get everything back on track, so I ended up having gastric sleeve surgery and I’ve dropped over 130 pounds since last March. You guys have watched me melt away.

It wasn’t that long ago we saw you in person and you already look like you’ve lost a lot since then.

I have. I don’t even know how much.

Was that December?

We had already been to London, right?

I have no idea. Everything has been a blur.

Did we bore you with London stories?

I think you guys were getting ready to go.

If we didn’t bore you with London stories, we hadn’t been there yet.

It was probably November. Tell us about that. What was it like deciding to get the gastric sleeve surgery? I know there are different kinds you can get.

A lot of people don’t know, but I work in GI in pulmonary with a lot of doctors. I’ve had the unique experience of talking to doctors all over the country about this surgery, getting the ins and outs of what works, what doesn’t work, the good, the bad, the ugly. There was nothing negative about it whatsoever. It was your life would change a whole lot. You need to be aware that it’s going to change a whole lot. It’s like hitting a reset button on your entire body.

I had the opportunity to do a lot more homework than most people probably get to. I went into this 100% going, “I know what I’m getting into. I know what’s going to happen.” I know what the post-surgical life is supposed to look like. I have been through it. I had a good friend of mine who had already been through it about 12 or 15 months earlier. He was my coach through the whole thing. I did all my homework and made sure because it was a major surgery. It’s life-changing. I made sure that I knew going into this that I was going to do it. I was determined to do it because there’s no, “I changed my mind. Can you go back and fix what you did?” There’s no going back.

Is it normal in the process to have a coach or someone else who has been through it or is it that you were fortunate enough to know somebody?

Most surgeons will have support groups of some sort, whether it’s Facebook or they’ll have nutritionists and stuff that you’re assigned but you don’t usually have like a “coach.” This happened to be a good friend of mine who had it done. He was more a friend than a coach, but he’s been my go-to for everything.

I’m curious, you hear so much about the weight loss drugs right now and see lots of people having great success with those. What made you opt for surgery that’s more invasive than trying something like that first? I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t. I’m curious what makes someone land in one spot versus the other?

For me, the drugs out there are more of a possible quick fix or a possible temporary fix. What happens when you come off of those is like when you get on a diet plan that works or an eating plan that works, you have to be able to sustain that. You have to be able to come off of those things and still adapt and still learn how to manage your eating, your fitness levels, and everything. With the surgery, it forces you into that new bubble. It forces you into this is what you are dealing with now. This is what you live every day. There’s no going out of it. There are physical consequences if you try to go out of that.

I’ve tried every diet plan out there. I’ve tried every food plan I can think of out there. I’ve tried all these different things. If I’m getting a shot or a pill, I eventually going to have to come off that. That’s not sustainable for life. What if the body develops an immunity to it, then what happens? If you come off that and your body feels completely different and the eating and the cravings and everything come back, in six months, I’m back to where I started or worse.

With the surgery, there’s no going back. There are ways to undo this over time, but my mindset is if I’m in a structure that I have to stick to and I can’t get out of, and I know that sounds weird, but if I’m in a structured plan that there’s no room to go over here and screw it up, you have to stick to it, I thrive in that. You guys have seen it. I’ve thrived. My surgeon and my nutritionist are like, “People have changed, but you’ve had massive changes.”

Some of that is because you didn’t get the surgery. You’re still exercising and working out all the time.

That has a big factor in all of these things, whether it’s taking a pill or it’s doing the surgery. If you’re not doing those things and you lose all the weight, over time, your metabolism is still going to shift. If you’re not keeping up with the exercise and keeping up with building muscle, which I know is something you’re working hard on, that makes a huge difference in how you age, to have that muscle. That’s great that you’re doing that.

The cool thing about it is I love lifting more than anything and even more than Peloton.

Thanks for joining us.

That’s my cue to exit.

We’ll use this one on the Superset because you also have a Tonal.

The cool thing about it is because it’s such a reset on every aspect and you can’t workout for several weeks and you can’t do anything for several weeks, because I love lifting so much, I’ve built the strongest core I’ve ever had. My muscle tone is the most amazing I’ve ever had because I’ve started from ground zero. After 6 or 8 weeks, it’s like, “You can lift up to 5 pounds.” You’re like, “5 pounds, yay.” It’s crazy that at 5 pounds, I was sore. Six or eight weeks off, even five pounds I was sore.

How am I supposed to pee? Am I right?

Exactly. It’s been life-changing. It’s been lifesaving. I was 372 pounds going into that surgery. My weight was still going in the wrong direction. I don’t know that I’m here without that. I don’t know what other health problems that I already don’t have. I don’t know what else is piled on.

For people who may not know, can you explain at a very high level what gastric sleeve surgery is?

The highest level is they go in and they cut the majority of your stomach out. They stitch it up. I’m not exaggerating, your stomach literally will hold only about 4 ounces of food or liquid at a time. There are so many rules around post-surgical. Do you want me to go into that too?

The soda thing is fascinating to me.

First of all, you can’t have soda. Carbonation is gas. Tom is out. It’s like a lot of things that you would never think about. You saw this but for those of you tuning in to this, when you go out to eat, you are used to eating and drinking the whole meal away. I can’t. I have to eat what I eventually figure out is about 2 to 4 ounces of food and then take a break, and then I have to wait for that to settle before I eat a little bit more. I have to wait for that to settle for a good 10 or 15 minutes before I can take a drink.

Your stomach is so small, so when that food dissolves or digests, it turns to liquid first in what they call a pouch now instead of a stomach. That liquid will eventually go out. If you put 3 or 4 ounces of food and that turns to liquid and then you try to add 3 or 4 ounces of drink, it only goes one direction. That’s not the direction you want it to go.

That sounds unpleasant.

Can you feel that it’s okay to drink something or eat a little more or is it something that you get a sense for the longer you are going through the process?

They warn you to take small bites and try to figure it out on your own as to what is a little bit too much or what is, “I have enough.” You learn over time, but it’s very easy early on to have too much. When it’s too much, it’s not a good thing. The first couple of months, I came close a couple of times where I was like, “Don’t anybody touch me. Don’t anybody get near me?” “Are you okay?” “Shut up. Don’t say a word to me. I need twenty minutes to think about everything going away.” You have to learn on your own. There’s no way to say, “This many bites and you’re good.” There’s no deadset way on it.

You talk about it’s only one way that it’s coming back out. Is that medically a problem? Not that anybody wants to throw up, but if you had to, if it caused that, would that upset the surgery? Did they warn you like, “Under no circumstances?”

The only thing that I recall being told was to try not to for the first several weeks because they’ve literally cut your stomach down to nothing and stitched it back up. You have to understand also that in the first two weeks post-surgery, you’re taking sips of water or protein drinks of some sort. That’s all you’re having for two weeks.

I’m always like, “What if?” What happens if you’re out cutting the grass and you’re thirsty? You can’t quench your thirst. Are you going to do your 4 ounces and you got to be thirsty until that went its way through the system?

The thirst is a little bit different. It hits differently. You get to the point where you’re like, “I’m thirsty.” You still get to that point like nonsurgical people. That’s why I carry this with me everywhere because I’m taking small sips and you’re supposed to be taking small sips every fifteen minutes or so throughout the day to try to make sure you get enough water. I can tell you that I don’t think I’ve ever hit my water goal in a day.

It’s too hard. Plus, when you’re working and you’re busy, you don’t always have time to stop. Before you know it, it’s been an hour or two. I don’t know that I’ve ever hit my water goal, but the goal is to try to get a couple of sips in every fifteen or so minutes to try to stay plenty hydrated. I’ve never been to a point where I wasn’t hydrated enough. I’ve been thirsty.

You feel like you should not drink anymore because it would be problematic.

After you drink a little bit, you can feel it going down. You can feel it in your stomach right away to where you’re like, “I know there’s water in there and I don’t care if I’m thirsty or not. I know I’m not drinking another drop because I know how I’m going to feel.”

You’re going to end up thirstier.

It’s crazy. There’s so much that goes into this pre and post.

We’ve talked a little bit offline so I know some of your thoughts about it, but I’m curious how much you want to share with people about your personal feelings about sharing this with people. I know there’s like a stigma around doing surgery or taking pills. People have strong opinions about these things and they’re not always encouraging.

If you had asked me a year and a half or two years ago whether I would ever consider this, I would have been like, “Absolutely not. That’s a cheating way. That’s an easy way out. That’s a coward way out.” I’m not going to judge you for doing that but it’s almost like, “I’m too good for that. I’m going to do it the natural way. I’m not taking those shortcuts.”

Eventually, I digested all those thoughts and processed them. It’s like depression, anxiety, or high blood pressure. It’s like anything. Everybody needs help for something and you get to a point where enough is enough. I need help to get past whatever. My weight was 372. I did great for a couple of years but then I had those two and a half years of slam one after another surgery and health issue, and surgery and health issue.

I finally got to the point where I was like, “This is about saving my life. This is not a coward’s way out.” I cannot mentally stay in the mindset that some people can for the eating, doing this, and doing that. That’s what got to that point. It’s like telling myself, “You’re not cheating. You’re not taking the easy way out. You’re doing what you have to do to fix your life. Who cares what anybody thinks?” If anybody has anything negative to say about it, then you can move along most nicely or the non-Tom way of saying it. It’s like, “Screw you. Go away. I don’t need that negativity.”

We’ve talked to enough people who have done this or know people in our personal lives who have done it. It is not easy. You’re all in. As you said, there’s no going back. Not only is it a surgical procedure, but if you are wrong, it doesn’t matter. This is what you’re doing. That’s the part that would scare me the most about something like this.

You were saying it’s not the easy way out. There are a lot of people who struggle with this. We’ve talked to a lot of people.

If you do that, there’s no going back. That’s what would scare me the most about a procedure like this. It’s the idea that if I get there and I don’t like it, I can’t go home.

You also said there are a lot of pre and posts that you have to do.

I was fortunate that I work in GI and pulmonary so I could ask many doctors at many different places I go about the good, the bad, and the ugly. The only negative thing that was already said was if you don’t stay up on your vitamins and stuff and feed yourself healthier stuff, then you could develop some malnutrition possibility easily. You not only have to talk to someone about the nutritionist and make sure that you understand what’s coming pre and post and everything but you also have to talk to a psychologist.

They want to make sure that you are all there mentally and you understand. If you have issues with anxiety or mental issues or if you have a bad obsession with overeating and things like that, you have to understand that your world is about to be completely flipped upside down. At the same time, as challenging as it is, there’s a chemical called ghrelin that your normal stomach produces.

Your stomachs produce it and that’s what feeds the cravings and it talks to your brain. It’s like, “You want more of that candy. You want more of that cake. You want another bacon double cheeseburger. You want more chicken nuggets and chicken tenders. Orange Julius.” When your stomach is cut down to like mine, that chemical can’t produce anymore. I have had zero cravings for anything.

Don’t you still want it? I feel like, “If I go to Disney and get a Dole Whip, it’s going to make me sick.” Don’t you even have the desire to eat it?

No. I’ve been next to my family and they’re eating ice cream or cake or something and they’re like, “Do you want a bite?” I’m like, “No.” I’ll take it a step further and tell you that my mental state has flipped so much that I’m partially afraid to eat anything bad again because I fear that old me and going back to where I came from, which is not as easily done now. It would take several months if not a year-plus to get back to that. I have to try to get back to that. I never want to go back there. The cravings are zero, like nothing. It’s wonderful.

I’m sure it feels very freeing.

It does because I’m in my ten months post-surgery and my menu is anything I want now. I got my goals with my workout program and doing everything else that I’m doing. I’m trying to keep my menu small still. Eventually, I’ll get to that point where it’s like, “Now I can loosen it up a little bit.” Right now, I’m still in my little bubble of what I want.

Will that increase over time how much food you can eat or is that a sign that you’re going back the wrong direction?

They say that if you eat small portions and don’t try to push the limits of how much you eat, your stomach will stay the same size for the most part. If I constantly am pounding food in there and trying to maximize how much I eat, you can expand that stomach over time so it will get a little bigger. How much you can expand a stomach again, I don’t know. Not that I ever want to find out. That can happen to some people. It can expand over time and you can put back on I don’t know how much weight but I don’t want to find out.

Does that change the way your family interacts with food or they’re like, “We are going to do what we’ve always done,” or have they been inspired to change anything?

The daughters, no. My youngest, no, but my wife has been watching what’s happened. She’s been trying to get into shape and get more on board. She’s been doing wonderful too. I think it has an effect on her too. Early on it was, “We can’t go eat this or we can’t go do that because you’re doing this.” I’m like, “No, you keep doing what you want. I don’t care. I have my own menu. I could cook what I wanted. You all do whatever if you don’t want to get healthy like me. I’m doing it.”

What a great attitude to have. Maybe it’s different for men versus women, but I talk to a lot of people with my clients. They’re going through a different process, but a lot of times people are afraid to have different food than what their family has. They feel called out or they’re inconveniencing people. They don’t want to be different than what everybody else is doing. It makes them very uncomfortable.

Being on the other side of this now, things look different to me and I have different viewpoints. That to me is more of a personal mindset. if you have goals and you want to hit a certain goal or a certain set of goals or if you’re training for this or training for that, then what does it matter what anybody else does or what anybody else eats? If you are determined to hit that goal of whatever it is, then you have to do what you have to do. Are you going to stick to it or are you going to go left and right off the path and eventually get there in a couple years versus a few months? I don’t want to say it’s all mental, but a lot of it’s mental of how badly you want to hit that goal.

Before we wrap up, I’m curious, has there been anything about this that has surprised you that you didn’t expect?

I don’t know if I’d call it a surprise or not. I’ve been surprised at how much weight has come off already because I was thinking in a year, I might lose 100. To hit 130 at nine months, I was like, “Holy crap.” I know I’ve been killing it and I know I’ve been doing it well but that was such a mental motivational boost for me because now that I hit that, it’s slowed down drastically. At the same time, with the new program, I’m doing, and I showed Crystal a picture earlier, in the last 30 days, I only dropped 1.5 pounds.

It looks like so much more.

In the picture looks like I probably dropped 15. My body has now gone from dropping weight to shifting and re-morphing itself into different shapes. It’s cool stuff.

That’s the importance of exercising and not letting the surgery itself do all the work.

Anybody can have the surgery and they’ll lose 100 pounds in a year probably. It’s the perfect opportunity to do both. Reset the body with food and your mental state but also build something healthy underneath there from the inside and out. It’s the perfect combination for me, but not everybody does it.

one last question, is there anything we haven’t asked you that you want to make sure people know?

I want to iterate what I said earlier. It’s not a shortcut, a cheat, or an easy way out. It’s not anything negative. I hate to use the word drastic, but it is drastic. It’s major surgery. If you have to do something like this, then you have to do what’s right for you. When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? Is it the person that you want to be?

Forget what anyone else says about that. I didn’t say anything publicly for several months. I didn’t say anything publicly for probably 6 or 7 months to hit the 100-pound weight loss mark. I was like, “I’m going to tell people I lost 100 pounds because that’s amazing.” Still, to this day, I haven’t said a whole lot until recently because my gastric surgeon posted my pictures.

Now everybody knows. If you’re going to do something like that, my recommendation is to keep it private for a while or keep it private until eventually, someone figures it out if you want or tell your close circle. I told Crystal and you guys early on because you are my close friends, but don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to get your health in order because your family probably wants you around for a long time. I know mine do. My oldest is married. Eventually, she’ll have a kid. That’s my final thoughts. It’s not a shortcut. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to do something to make sure you’re around for many years.

We’re proud of you.

Thanks.

Before we let you go, remind everybody what your leaderboard name is.

When you want to hit a certain goal, you gotta do what you gotta do. Share on X

It’s That Drum Guy. On Instagram @ThatDrumGuy73.

Thank you so much for flying all the way in for this interview.

I flew here for this.

He’s going to give us a bill at the end.

First class on the way home.

‐‐‐

I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on all the socials and the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the Show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Of course, don’t forget our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content and we’ll like you a little bit more. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

 

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