348. Peloton Reverses Course On GymKit Plus Our Interview With Careen Joscelyn

Last Updated: February 16, 2024By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Continuous Movement, fitness, Holistic Health, Peloton, Self Transformation, Weight Management

Peloton restores the relationship with GymKit.
co.uk writes about the appeal for walking workouts.
How will TikTok’s in-app shopping affect Peloton?
Angelo talks about finding your personal levers for change.
Irene Kaymer returns to Peloton.
Robin Arzon makes the cover of VegOut (while wearing Brittany Allen).
Matt Wilpers will run the Boston Marathon.
Alex Toussaint launching a new series – In The Lab.
New celebrity Peloton member sighting – Judy Greer.
Donna Mills talks to Fox News Digital about her Peloton workouts.
The latest artist series features Green Day.
Wahoo & Zwift team up to take on Peloton.
Alter launches personalized fitness platform using DNA.
TCO Top 5.
This week at Peloton.
Denis Morton and Camila Ramon join the Groove Ride roster.
A recap of Peloton’s Valentine’s Day classes.
Peloton celebrates Lunar New Year.
Peloton Apparel has BYOE line restocked with new colors.
Birthdays – Ross Rayburn (2/19)

All this plus our interview with Careen Joscelyn!

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Peloton Reverses Course On GymKit Plus Our Interview With Careen Joscelyn

Happy Valentine’s Day. We’re recording on Valentine’s Day. I guess we should start by saying thanks to everyone who showed up for the book club.

We had so many people. That was fine.

One of them was Ross Rayburn.

What a delight he was. I feel like we got some fun information and super deep thoughts. It was a very enlightening evening.

I got tricked into doing a Peloton routine.

Ross offered to give you a badge.

Everybody.

Yes, but you started down the road at the badges. He was like, “While we’re at it, we should all get a badge for everybody,” and it was going to be a picture of Ross’s face. That would be the badge that we decided to do. If you are a Patreon member and you weren’t able to enjoy the book club last, and this is for all members, paid or not, you can go over there and get the entire recording, minus a couple of things that we had to take out.

That’s why you have to be there live.

We have exclusive news that you can only get if you are there.

If you want to check that out, it’s an hour-long of Ross talking about his book and his thoughts on things. You can get that over at Patreon.com/theclip out. That is available at the free level so you don’t have to pay to listen to that, but it does live over there if you want to wander and check it out. We’d love to have you. I guess we should announce our next book for the book club.

This will be our March book club, the second Tuesday of March, whenever that is because I haven’t looked at the calendar. It will be at 7 PM Central, 8 PM Eastern. We will be discussing The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins. If you haven’t figured out yet, these books are all written by authors who use Peloton, and Mel Robbins is one of those authors.

You should also say that the one coming up after that.

We will be reading Maid. It has a subtitle that I can’t remember, but I’ve read that one. It’s such a good book.

That was turned into a Netflix show.

It was also great. We haven’t seen it.

I have not read that one. It’s been on our Kindle. I’ve been thinking, “I’ve heard good things. Maybe I’ll try that.” I thought, “I’ll read that,” because I got done with the book I’m reading now. As I said before, I’m a very slow reader and I’m reading the longest book in the world right now. I just finished the first chapter of The Winds of War. For people whose parents had that book lying around, this is pretty old. It’s very popular in the ‘70s, but it’s cut long. It’s massive. If you put it next to a paperback copy of The Stand Unabridged. It’s still bigger. It has length and girth.

According to your Kindle stats of how long it’s going to take you to read, I’m not sure you’re going to be done with the book.

I’m not sure either. It’s funny. It was like, “Average read time, 21 hours,” and then I logged in at the end of the first chapter. It’s like, “You have 46 hours.” I wish that was something I was doing for comedic effect or hyperbole of being absurd to make a point, but no. That is literally how long my Kindle told me I have to read. Might as well have to burn some PTO.

Just start taking it whenever you go those emoji shifts.

I have a hard time focusing at work.

That’s because people pop into your office.

No, they don’t. I just have a hard time. We’re also doing Bingo. Let’s do a Bingo call-out right here for people.

Bingo call-out number one is Mariana Fernandez. She’s delightful so you should take that class.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We are going to talk all about this GymKit situation.

It’s a whole kerfuffle.

We’re going to talk about that. There are all kinds of things going on there. Some interesting articles came up about walking workouts and also Tiktok’s new foray into shopping and whether it will affect Peloton. We also have a visit from Angelo from MetPro and we talk about finding your levers for change. We also have some instructors in the news. We have multiple celebrity sightings, new artist series, competitor news, and we have some instructor news, and another Bingo call-out.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, 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 is super appreciated. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. You can sign up for our newsletter at TheClipOut.com, where you get all the links and stuff sent to you.

You can also find us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where for $5 a month, you get ad-free episodes. You get all sorts of bonus content and you get our love for Valentine’s Day. It’s a great and easy way to support the show. We try to keep the cost minimal at $5. That’s not a whole lot. If you’re swinging by there, we’d love to have you. You can also watch all of these over on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

‐‐‐

GymKit. First off, what’s a GymKit?

Love to move. Click To Tweet

GymKit is this thing that lives in the Appleverse. If you have an Apple Watch, it connects automatically to the machine. In my experience with a Bike+ specifically, I would take my little Apple Watch and as the class was getting ready to start, I would wave it in front of the little sensor, and then I would be starting. It will automatically track all of my metrics on my Watch and that would go to my profile. It would go to my Apple Health. Everything was happy. Does that make sense?

As much as I can understand since I don’t have Apple products.

Whether you have an Apple Watch or not, you also can have Apple Health. That is one of the things that people like. They like to fill their rings up. There are whole competitions, which I don’t like competitions, but lots of people do. It’s like with Peloton. You make it work however you need it to work. Being able to participate in those competitions is what motivates people, therefore, they need to be able to make sure that their data is filling up their ring. If they took a class and it didn’t count, then it’s like you didn’t get credit if you’re doing one of these competitions.

There are a lot of reasons why you would want it to fill up your ring. Some of it has nothing to do with competition. Some of it is you just want to track all of your health and you want to be able to see how many minutes a day you’re doing your workouts. At any rate, where things stood Monday is Peloton started sending out emails to people. If you are on the record as a current GymKit user, then you got an email saying, “We’re no longer going to use GymKit. We’re going to use this thing called One Tap Tracking,” which still connects you to the equipment.

You can still get your information and it still fills up your rings, but there is a very common misconception that it does not fill up your rings. People were very upset about that, but it’s interesting because the benefit of moving to One Top Tracking is that it would be across all equipment. In your bike, your Bike+, your tread, your rower, or whatever, you would be able to get that information, but the masses have spoken and they are very upset about not having GymKit access.

Can they not have both available?

I don’t know the answer to that. After days of asking a lot of questions, we don’t have many answers. What we do know is as of this moment, Peloton plans to reverse gears. They plan to GymKit for the foreseeable future. That is a direct quote, “For the foreseeable future.” In my mind, someday, it could change. Wrap your head around that, people. I think this raises more questions than answers.

What questions has it raised for you?

Why are they changing it? We know that a lot of Peloton users used to be Apple users. We know that from our own download situation. I think it’s a pretty small segment of those people that also use Apple Watches.

Apple Watch is very popular. If you’re an Apple user and you have a piece of Peloton equipment, I would think you probably have a greater likelihood of also having an Apple Watch.

Maybe I’m not saying it correctly. It’s not that I don’t think that they don’t have an Apple Watch. There are all kinds of ways that you can track your fitness and stats, and I don’t know that it’s linked like everybody who has an Apple Watch gives a shit about how they record it as long as it records it. I record mine in multiple ways because I have a Whoop and an Apple Watch. Sometimes I even use my Polar Strap whenever I’m testing with my Stride or if I’m testing for the VO2 Master. There are all of these things that I’m using.

The larger point I’m trying to make is I can’t believe that out of all the things that Peloton have taken away and people have thrown a fit over, this is the one that they caved on. There has to be a bigger reason. They’re saying it’s members that made them change. I’m sure that is true to an extent. What’s the other reason? I can make guesses all day. I don’t know what that reason is. Do you think that there is some legal repercussion here?

When Peloton first released the Bike+, none of the features was listed everywhere as GymKit, and that was back in 2020. They still had it all over everything. That was a big deal then. Do you think that there is some legal thing for not keeping it on there? Can people say, “You removed a feature?” There are a lot of people who bought a Bike+ specifically because they could make it work with the GymKit and they are mad.

I find it strange that many people who were that upset were able to get Peloton to change their minds. When I think about how many people have complained about it, I don’t know customer service. They keep saying they’re going to change it. It hasn’t and it has not gotten appreciably better after making changes.

That’s a lot harder thing to just flip a switch and change, “People, be nicer or be better.” That’s a lot more nebulous to correct.

There are a million things that I think of. They didn’t make the right statement

Every time they purge a class.

They have reverse courses in two classes that I know, but very small.

That’s a much easier simpler fix if you have a sizable number of people who are super upset about the absence of a particular class.

How many people did it take before they removed they said the details about removing the Kanye classes? That was several days. Some of it is Peloton gets quiet and you never know what that means. Does that mean they’re planning a change? Does that mean they already had it planned? It was so weird because they started rolling this out on people’s tablets. They started sending these emails out. All the stuff started coming out. The Verge has an article on it. Every other outlet out there used the Verge article and then wrote another article about it. It was everywhere. I find that so strange that all of that came from a small subset of people. That is weird to me that they’re reversing courses. It feels like a bigger story to me.

I don’t know enough about that end of things to even guess.

It does not mesh with what I’ve seen them do in the past. I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m saying they don’t care about the members because that’s truly not what I’m saying. I’m sure that was a portion of this.

A lot of times, when you see this clamoring about “Give us this thing back or make this change,” Peloton has data. Just because somebody is loud doesn’t mean that they have enough people that move the needle.

That’s fair. Obviously, we don’t see the data. I was surprised because I was reading through the lines of this conversation. Part of what they were saying on the record is that they only sent out emails to people who use GymKit, which means that they can tell if you’re a person who uses GymKit. It’s crazy to think that it’s that granular but to your point Tom there is data. Maybe I’m picturing it as this small subset and it’s like a million people. I don’t know.

Any thoughts on why they wanted to get rid of it in the first place?

They did not elaborate on anything. My assumption is that the One Tap Tracking is available across all of the equipment.

They could just code for one thing.

That would give the member a better experience too. I don’t know why but that’s what I assumed that it was. I wonder if there are a lot of people who didn’t get emails that use GymKit because there have been a lot of problems with the technology in general not working. I don’t know if the technology hasn’t been working because they’ve been testing and making this change. I don’t know if it hasn’t been working because there are other problems.

Maybe they find it buggy and they want it to work better. They were like, “Let’s get rid of it and switch to this because it still works on the other thing. Who cares?”

The other important thing to note about One Tap Tracking that is important that I don’t think I said already is if you use the Apple Kit or the GymKit, that is within Apple’s world. If you use the One Tap Tracking that pulls it into Peloton’s world. It becomes Peloton’s data.

That’s what’s driving it.

That could be a very important reason that they wanted to go down that road. There are a lot of people who just want the data. If Peloton is going to continue using the GymKit and maybe someday move over to One Tap Tracking, the hope is that they’ll be able to do it. You can’t even tell as a user. It has all the same data points. That would be my hope but who knows? I can’t believe how upset people got about it and how much traction it got. It’s just a simple thing.

People get Apple because they like that it’s very plug-and-play. All the Apple things talk and you don’t have to think about it. If all this sudden, you’re saying you might have to make a change, that’s drawing for people.

It still fits your ring. I don’t know why it matters. Maybe it does matter because it’s not giving that specific power output. I don’t know because it wasn’t even supposed to take place until the 27th of this month. What is it that people were seeing that they were already upset about? I don’t get it.

Moving on to other stories, Stylist.co.uk wrote about how much they dig walking workouts.

First of all, I think we’re seeing another example of the tread getting traction. I also think that’s important because this was written in the UK. Something that I have always felt about these workouts is that you can underestimate how much you will enjoy them. You have said so many times, Tom, that people who are seasoned runners, and I think this goes for walkers as well, it’s like, “Why do I need somebody to tell me how to walk or run.” Don’t get me wrong. You can do that on your own, but for me personally, it’s so much more engaging and I’m going to stick with it more. I think I’m not the only one that feels that way.

Clearly not because Miranda Larby feels that way too. I know this is on a UK site, but Miranda Larby screams dot-co dot-UK to me. That sounds like a British name. Miranda Larby, I’m like, “She says lift.”

When we came home from London, I had so many words in my head that people say in London and they’re all gone now. The lift is still there but other than that, they’re all gone.

TikTok is testing its long-awaited in-app shopping feature.

Why do you care about that? Don’t forget that recently, Peloton teamed up with TikTok and they have you know, TikTok Fitness in their little channel or whatever. I suspect that we might be seeing shopping taking place right in the TikTok app.

Do you think they’ll be selling equipment or apparel?

Apparel. Other helper bees mentioned this a month ago about the most recent Lululemon drop. They had noticed that there were instructors who were wearing Lululemon and they described it. They’re doing the shopping thing while they’re on the bike. Ever since the helper bees pointed that out, I can’t unsee it. No matter what class I’m in, if an instructor is wearing Lululemon, they talk about it. I think that you’re going to see Lululemon being sold to you directly on TikTok. You’re going to see the instructors doing the shopping things.

Like QVC types of stuff.

You might even remember that they did something like that over on Instagram. As far as I know, they only did it once and they never did it again. I think they’re going to try it again over on TikTok, and I have a feeling it’s going to do well.

‐‐‐

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

Thanks for having me back.

We are happy to have you here. The last time we talked, we talked about goal setting for 2024. One of the things that you brought up is the type of people that need to work on behaviors and then their consistency, and then there’s another type of people who are doing all the things, but they’re not seeing the change they want to see. What I wanted to ask this time is, how do we understand what our personal levers for change are if we’re one of the people who’s doing all the things?

Great question. I’m glad you asked that. That’s a very timely question because, at MetPro, we’ve been doing a big research project where we’ve reviewed some of the newest research. We’ve taken 45 peer-reviewed clinical studies and trials. We’ve compared it against what we have been finding with our clients. What I want to tell you is that contrary to marketing and popular belief, nutrition and exercise are some of the most well-researched and studied topics. We have so much clinical research out there. When some celebrity or professional trainers suggest that they have found a new way or they discovered something new, and it’s different than anyone else, and only celebrities and pro athletes know it, and you too can eat donuts, be very suspicious.

Here’s what actual research is indicating. While I won’t be able to share all the studies we’ve gone over, we have broken it down by the most researched and proven methodologies. Here it is. It comes down to calorie manipulation. The same rules apply if you’re trying to gain muscle or lose fat. We’ll speak in terms of weight loss which represents 83% of people who reach out to us. There is carbohydrate manipulation or control. There is exercise, and then there is something called nutritional periodization or cycling your nutrition. That can be done in short spurts or it can be done on a macro cycle over longer periods of time.

These remain the four ways or the four levers that you have. You might find this superfood that’s healthy and satiating, and it is high in antioxidants. All of that is great. That is not going to be the deciding factor in body composition changes. At the end of the day, it’s going to boil down to these four very well-studied mechanics and how they interact with each other. The caveat is that there are pros and cons to each. The thing to remember is your body craves homeostasis. Your body will constantly adapt and acclimate to try to prevent excessive weight loss or weight gain. Your body knows you cannot exist in an ongoing state of either perpetual weight gain or weight loss. It adjusts things biologically and hormonally on a cellular level. All the different systems that work together in your body adjust to try and recreate homeostasis.

I feel like my body’s a lot better at one kind of adjustment than another.

That’s what people think but that’s only because we don’t notice when it’s working in our favor. How many times did we gain a couple of pounds over a bad eating week? If you add up the math, you deserve to gain a lot more. The metabolism is working for us instead of against us. With calorie control, that has essentially remained within the research. Clinical studies have shown that it is still the most single influential piece of the equation when it comes to predicting weight loss or lack thereof.

Somebody says calories don’t don’t matter. They are saying that in the face of literally thousands of pieces of research. Calories do matter. Your intake balance does matter. However, what happens is a downside to calorie restriction. It triggers something called metabolic adaptation, metabolic adaption, metabolic drift, and adaptive thermogenesis. These are all terms that relate to your body getting used to lowering calories and slowing your metabolism. That’s essentially what it means.

I saw adaptive thermogenesis open for yes. It was great.

What the new research is showing is someone scary. What it’s showing is this adaptive process, as trainers and nutritionists, we used to think that when you eat less, your metabolism slows because you become a smaller person. You weigh less so of course, your metabolism is slower. What all the new research is showing is while that is true, that only accounts for a tiny bit of your metabolism slowing. People’s metabolism slows way more than the 5 pounds of weight they lost. Explain that.

What’s happening is this adaptive response in relation to dieting itself. They proved that. What they did was they measured RMR-BMR, base metabolic rate and resting metabolic rate, of some young men like College age athletes’ oxygen chamber, the whole nine yards. It was a very good clinical study. You have to read the details where they underfed them. The results were that you could see declines in resting metabolic rate in as little as three days. That shocked some people. They didn’t lose 50 pounds in three days. They just changed their diet. You can start seeing those effects that fast. The good news is you could also see it increase when they overfed them.

It’s interesting to see what the science is indicating. Calorie control remains a reliable and proven method, but it shouldn’t be applied in a vacuum. You need to understand that there is going to be some kickback on it, metabolically speaking. It needs to be applied to the degree necessary. With carbohydrate restriction, the research does not all agree. Some research remains that calorie restriction is the bigger factor. Other research indicates that with carbohydrate restriction, you can lose weight a little quicker or you actually can lose a little more weight. It does seem to indicate that that is the case.

The reason not all the research is in line with one another is largely that some of that increased weight loss can be choked up to hydration fluctuation that is associated with low-carb dieting. You lose water. Each gram of glucose or glycogen in your muscles and livers is stored with 3 grams of water. Much of that is depleted quickly, therefore, resulting in some water loss when you restrict carbohydrates. Be that as it may, there is still a body of evidence that indicates that despite that, it can still enhance weight loss. Some research indicates, especially with specific groups, that it can help control sugar cravings. It can help stabilize blood sugar and other things like that.

The downside is you will still experience some metabolic drift. When you restrict carbohydrates, what we’ve learned is that your body becomes more carbohydrate-sensitive. There’s that to weigh. The third proven lever that we have is exercise. I’m going to give you a piece of bad news. Do you want to know what all the recent research suggests?

You’re not working as hard as you thought. You might be working as hard, but you’re not burning as many calories. It’s not fair because I already know the answer.

The ACSM’s latest research which is based on meta-analys where they’ve taken into factor hundreds and hundreds of research papers, indicates that we have to do between 150 to 250 minutes a week to just prevent weight gain of greater than 3%.

You’ll still gain weight. It just won’t be over 2% or 3%.

That’s what the stats show. Why isn’t everyone throwing up their hands and saying, “Why bother? I’m just going to focus on diet.”

It's hard when you look in the mirror and you don't recognize yourself. Click To Tweet

I did. He’s like, “Thanks for joining us. This is the last episode of The Clip Out.”

Here’s why you have to ignore Tom, because of another meta-analysis, and this coincides with all the data we’ve gotten at MetPro, another meta-analysis where they evaluated thousands of different clinical studies that were deemed successful weight loss attempts that sustained weight loss of greater than 5% of your body weight. That’s the clinical definition of that. In this meta-analysis, if they were successful, 88% of them included regular exercise. Exercise is massively impactful, but not necessarily for the reasons people think. Here’s a big one. Even though someone can do the math and go, “I did all that exercise and I burned 150 calories. I’ll just skip my apple and peanut butter today, and skip the exercise.” Everything works out equal, right?

Right.

Not so, because of that metabolic drift associated with decreased intake. What happens is to lose the same amount of weight, you have to eat that much less. When you eat less, all the research shows your metabolism slows down in compensation for that. By virtue of being able to eat a little bit more and still lose weight, exercise has an extremely potent effect on your ability to continue losing weight and keep it off without plateauing faster. Exercise is huge. The last piece is nutritional cycling or periodization. It is our belief in MetPro that there is a lot of opportunity that most people leave on the table. That is it has proven conclusively that your metabolism will follow your intake.

Some people call it refeeding, and some people call it metabolic revving, where it’s calculated not random like, “ I just ate that cheeseburger. Today is a refeed day.” By actually doing it at a time that makes sense, you can refresh your metabolic rate. We have seen tremendous results with our clients that MetPro doing that. By implementing in multidisciplinary way calorie control, carbohydrate control, exercise, and nutritional periodization, that’s where we’re able to get the best results long-term. That’s basic science that we help people Implement and make simple for the average person to apply. That’s what the latest research is saying and it’s good. It’s good. It means that you feel like, “I’ve tried everything and it’s not working.” Do not give up. There’s a strategy that will work for you.

I’ve seen it happen. We’ve seen it happen.

I’ve had it happen.

It’s amazing. It’s not just as simple as calories in calories out. I know you said a lot more than that, but that’s the point.

You have to have a certain degree of patience. It’s not going to happen overnight. If people would like this sort of information tailor-made to their fitness journey, where can they find you?

They can find us at MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you. We had a Peloton instructor leave and return. We will talk about her return when we return.

‐‐‐

Irene, whatever her last name is, has returned.

It used to be Schultz. She’s now married, and now it is Irene Kamer. Her first class back was on February 13th. She was super excited about it, posting it on socials. When we posted this article, we were like, “Who’s ready to take a class with Irene?” She was like, “I will be.”

I would hope.

She’ll be there. Hopefully, she’s ready. She seems to be enjoying it. The other instructors that she works with locally also seem to be enjoying it. That’s nice. It’s nice to have a happy ending here.

Robin Arzon was on the cover of a magazine. I’m not sure how to say the cover of this magazine.

Veg as in vegetarian. VegOut because she is a vegetarian. That’s why I know that.

She is gracing the cover of VegOut. She is also wearing a Brittany Allen outfit.

This is great for Robin, but we all know she’s been on her share of magazine covers. What is super exciting is that Brittany Allen is on her first cover of a magazine. That’s exciting. It’s nice to see that all of that come together.

It must be a very difficult issue because she’s wearing yellow.

Nicely done, Tom.

I listen sometimes.

It also says that she tells all, but I bet she doesn’t.

I doubt she does.

That would never be a thing.

Matt Wilpers announced that he will be running the Boston Marathon.

That’s that’s pretty cool. I would have thought he had done all of the marathons by now. He’s always exercising. It’s exciting and I love seeing all the instructors do all of these world majors. It’s fun. That’s great that he’s shocking another one up.

This is a good picture.

It’s visually appealing.

It’s very dynamic for just a picture of a guy running. The background, I don’t know where he’s at. Wherever he’s at it, it’s cool-looking.

I always wonder about people who take these pictures when they’re running. Did you do the trick where you have your camera on something and you keep running at it, trying to get the perfect shot, or do you have somebody with you? There’s nobody around him and that’s hard enough to do in New York.

My guess is this is a photo shoot of some kind. There’s a pro there with the tripod with probably some crazy zoom lens, or he might be 400 yards away and they can just zoom in. That way he doesn’t have to run 10 feet and stop. They can get full strides to get that perfect shot. Congrats to whoever did that.

Photo credit, Marina Alonso Rojas. Well done.

‐‐‐

We have two celebrity sightings. One I think we’ve seen before, but the one that we have not seen before to the best of my knowledge is Judy Greer.

I didn’t think we had seen either of them. That’s interesting. I know you told me, but for the people who may not know, what is Judy Greer famous for?

Judy Greer has made a cottage industry out of being the best friend in romantic comedies. She was in 27 Dresses. I’m trying to think of other things. Maybe 13 Going on 30 or one of those movies. She’s in a lot of that stuff. She was also on Arrested Development. She played Jeffrey Tambor’s secretary who kept exposing herself to Michael and accusing him of sexual harassment. She was in The Halloween sequel that came out in 2018 where they ignored all the other movies except the first one where Jamie Lee Curtis came back. The first one was so good. but the other ones were hot garbage. She’s in all sorts of stuff like that. You would recognize her if you saw her. She was on Two and a Half Men. She had a recurring role there. I think she popped up in Big Bang Theory a couple of times. She’s been in lots of things.

Welcome to the family Miss Judy Greer.

Also, Donna Mills spoke to Fox News Digital about how she stays fit. She is 83 years old. I refuse to say 83 years young because it sounds condescending. I rue the day that someone will refer to me as a young man trying to ingratiate himself.

You will read them the riot act

I’ll then be the old man yelling at a cloud. She’s probably most famous for being on Knots Landing.

That’s what made it stand out to me. I don’t remember seeing this before, but maybe we did. I think that’s cool that she’s 83 and she’s still in amazing shape. Congrats.

This article doesn’t have any pictures of her, but she looks great for 83. I’ve seen other pictures of her in different things because Facebook knows what you’re thinking and then feeds it to you. They know I’m always thinking about old-time television. I get a lot of stories about old-time television. She pops up in my Facebook feed sometimes because of that. Good for her.

Coming up after this, we’re going to tell you about the latest artist series and which competitors are teaming up to try to take down Peloton. Stick around.

‐‐‐

The latest artist series features Green Day. It’s always exciting when it’s a band I’ve heard of.

I’m excited about this. I’m not going to lie.

When meditation lost its fun, you’re fucking lazy. That’s that’s the song there. Would you like to hear my Green Day story?

We are moving that to the bonus and making time for this.

That’s okay. We’ll do it in the bonus. If you want to hear my Green Day story from my radio days, you can hear that in the bonus episode. I will keep things moving. We have a Green Day artist series.

There are a lot of classes including three Lanebreaks. Here’s the thing about this, Tom. This is only the Dookie album.

They’re celebrating 30 years of Dookie.

The only thing I was disappointed about at all is that the Lanebreak run is only 15 minutes.

That’s still probably nineteen songs that are functioning.

I’m looking forward to this. I thought was an interesting pairing that the run is going to be with Camila Ramon. I don’t know her music taste. It would have been like you know who would be perfect. Not that I’m against it. It didn’t pop into my head.

A yoga flow where I can guarantee you that you will hear the Time of Your Life, which I know is technically called Good Riddance. Don’t at me. If I said Good Riddance, half the people would have been like, “What song is that?”

That’s so true. Denis is doing the yoga flow, which is 30 minutes. You will also hear a lot of other hits.

They don’t have many songs that I would think lend themselves to yoga.

I don’t know how Denis is doing it, but by the time this airs, we will already know the answer to this. Sometimes Denis goes in and finds new arrangements. Maybe Green Day has done an acoustic version of that, like different songs. I have no idea.

Wake Me Up When September Ends and Good Riddance. That’s what I got for slower Green Day songs.

It is a yoga flow. Maybe he’s moving things along. Maybe it’s a little more power yoga.

We shall see. We won’t but you guys will.

You did do that meditation.

Celebrate being able to run and being able to move. Click To Tweet

I was trapped. Ross Rayburn trapped me. He’s a wily one. You got to watch it.

‐‐‐

Wahoo and Zwift, Wonder Twin powers activate. According to this, they are teaming up to challenge Peloton for at-home biking workout supremacy. Are they?

Truly, I don’t think that they are. We talked about how either Wahoo or Zwift had just made all these layoffs.

What they’re describing, which will get you, is it sounds like there will be people that are absolutely at the end of this, but I don’t think anybody is going to be like, “I don’t need a Peloton anymore.” I think the people who are going to want this either are never going to get a Peloton because they are road riders or they’re always going to have both and they don’t care.

I agree with all of that.

Tell them what they’re doing.

I didn’t read it.

I think it’s a training thing so you can use your bike at home. You can use your road bike.

This is the Wahoo kicker core Zwift 1. That is the name of whatever they are releasing. What is it? It is not a stationary bike. It’s a smart trainer that you can attach to your bike, and it is compatible with all 8 to 12-speed bikes and offers a realistic indoor cycling experience. There are virtual shifting capabilities and 24 virtual gears, and it’s ready to ride right out of the box. It connects instantaneously with your Zwift platform. You got to set it up. It’s done.

Does it have GymKit? That’s the real question.

Probably not because not all people in this world would be tracking it. It does say that you can buy this for $599 in the United States. I agree with you, Tom. I don’t think it’s a competitor. Some people have moved over to that, but they were right outside a lot. I don’t see the average person who enjoys a spin class going to want to do this. They do have fun games from what I heard.

I’m not even bagging on it. I just think that people want a Peloton or a Peloton-like experience. If you’re into your road bike, this makes total sense. It’s probably great for you. I think they’re two very different audiences.

I agree with you. I wouldn’t want to take my road bike and set it up on this thing because that’s too much. There are too many things I have to take apart. I don’t like it. Some people do it in two seconds and they make it look easy. That is not me. I end up crying every time I have to take the tire off my bike.

That is not how this household is. It took three of us to change the battery in a smoke detector.

It was mostly because it was high up in the ceiling.

It was very high up and I’m a shorter person, so my son had to help because he’s taller but he is even less mechanically inclined than I am.

I was trying to explain what he needed to do like to push and twist, but we got it done.

The dog was very thankful.

She heard that beep and she was cowering.

It wasn’t non-stop. The alarm was going off and she was like, “What is happening?”

That’s a great way to sum it up.

At least we know that if the house ever catches on fire, Twix will wake us.

She will jump on top of us and be like, “Make it stop. I don’t care if you’re going to die, but I need that to stop.”

We’ll be awoken by a coughing dog.

‐‐‐

Let’s start with Bingo announcement number two.

Bingo number two is Jess Sims. Make sure you’ve taken a class with Jess to check it off.

It is Ross this week because I took a Ross class. There goes my bingo card. I would have been up to two spaces. TCO Top Five, we reach out to you and you tell us what you like best and then we share it with other people. Maybe they can take a class instead of scrolling. One day, I’ll come up with a catchy way to say all that. Today is not that day.

It is perfect that you were talking about Ross because he is our favorite Peloton yoga. This is from January 19th of ‘24. It was a 30-minute ‘80s yoga flow. Kate Anthony says, “The 30-minute ‘80s yoga flow was great. The music was great and Ross was so funny.” You have to realize that when Ross is funny, he goes into major Dad joke time. I love it so much because he cracks himself up while he’s doing yoga and there’s nothing funnier than watching somebody crack themselves. It’s almost as funny as the jiggle giggle. Not quite but almost it’s pretty good.

I know what you’re referring to. Number two favorite is Peloton Pilates.

This comes from Kristin McGee. That class took place on February 2nd, 2024. Mindy Jensen submitted this. She says, “She’s so happy that Peloton has started incorporating props into Peloton Pilates and barre classes.” She knows that Kristin’s first 30-minute class with the ring was a top-five pick when it came out but she loved this one too. The ring adds another level of resistance and challenges Pilates because it engages your muscles that much more. She always feels it the next day.

I think the ring would get your heart rate up too because that little girl was so scary. Where did she come from?

That’s a different kind of ring.

Number three, favorite Peloton ride.

This one is from Tunde. It’s the 30-minute Timberland ride from February 8th. A lot of people were excited about this one. Kimberly Ray Jessup shared that it was not just her favorite class for the week. It’s now one of her favorites of all time. It made her top 10 fave ever, not sure who it bumped. “What a killer playlist and fun class. She was fire.”

Number four is favorite Peloton walk.

This took place on February 10th of ‘24. It was a 30-minute country pop walk with Rebecca Kennedy. Rebecca Allen said that she enjoyed this country walk. It featured popular country hits from the 2000s except for John Denver during the cool down, but it was an excellent low-impact workout with great vibes. She’s healing from an injury. These good vibe walks are what she needs and this was amazing.

Finally at number five, the favorite Peloton unstackable.

It’s my girl Susie with the 60-minute ‘80s run. If you have not taken an ‘80s class with Susie, you need to get on it. Here’s the thing Carrie I. Frank said that Susie’s 60-minute ‘80s run was a daunting amount of time because it was 60 minutes, but it was a perfect playlist and it was an achievable pace, and that equaled success. Plus, it’s Susie.

Let’s take a gander at this week in Peloton.

They’ve added a new collection, the Workday Reset. This helps you take a break from whatever you’re doing, okay, and it helps you refocus your brain. It’s going to help you refresh your mind. It’s a 20-class collection and has a bunch of short workouts that don’t require any equipment. You have your body weight, strength, low-impact cardio, cherry yoga, as well as meditation and stretches. We have another new one called Hack Your Commute. This is interesting because they kicked it off with a literal commute at a run in London. They want to get people who are already commuting to turn it into a positive thing by doing a run.

This particular collection contains fitness and mindfulness classes that blend seamlessly into your journey. That’s going to help you get to work faster. There is the monthly mantra yoga and meditation. Kristin McGee is bringing yoga meditation in a new stack. She’s going to be starting kicking it off on the 13th and it’s going to be a 30-minute beginner yoga flow, and then a 10-minute kindness meditation right after on demand.

That was one of my favorite Godzilla movies, Godzilla versus Mantra. That’s a good one. I recommend it.

We have Power Zone country. If you like country music and you like Power Zone training, Denis is heading up a 30-minute class that’s going to feature your favorite country hits on the 17th of February.

We also have new Groove ride instructors.

Denis and Camilla have now been officially added to the Groove ride roster. There was also a special class that was a Groove class and a Two For One with Emma and Leanne that took place on the 13th.

There were some Valentine’s Day classes you might want to check out.

This particular article was more about the Galentines. It was both. Maybe it’s just that I was more excited about the Galentines classes because what they did is Valentine’s Day is officially on the 13th, so they had Two For One. The Two For One I mentioned were Leanne and Emma. Technically, that’s Galentines. My gals Susie and Joslyn teamed up for a walk plus run. There were several like Ash and Katie on the rower. That was another Two For One. I thought that was fun.

I should have had a class on the 14th because it was Ash Wednesday.

That’s true. I was a bit disappointed though because I went to go take this walk plus run with Susie and Joslyn and could not get in at all. The servers have crashed. It was dead.

Was it your GymKit?

No, because it doesn’t work with the tread. That never would have been a thing, but I did try turning the tread off and on. Every time I came back, it was not starting. I tried on the app and it was like, “This is not a class. This is not real.” It’s not happening. After 15 minutes I gave up. It was fine because I had already done my workout for the day. I just wanted to hang out with these ladies, but I didn’t get to. I did take half of it this morning. That’s a whole other story.

Finally, Peloton celebrated the Lunar New Year.

Some fun classes took place and there were some Lanebreak classes for the Lunar New Year. I think it was more like Monday, like last Friday over the weekend, so Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There are a lot of a lot of things that hit this week.

‐‐‐

The Bring Your Own Energy collection is restocked and in new colors.

Now it’s navy and white, I don’t know if people went as crazy. I didn’t check but last time, they went super crazy. It was sold out in 20 minutes. Congratulations to Callie.

I don’t have energy so I can’t bring it. I can’t bring energy.

‐‐‐

We have one birthday. It is on February 19th, and it is from our book club guest kind enough to join us. It’s Ross Rayburn’s birthday.

Happy birthday to Ross Rayburn.

We hope it’s a good one.

He’ll be 53.

Same as me. His 53 looks a lot better though.

He does have a very beautiful head of hair. I know that bothers you.

Thanks for pointing out.

No problem.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to our guest of the week, Careen Joscelyn. Stick around.

Joining us is Careen Joscelyn. How’s it going?

I’m doing well. How about yourselves?

We are doing well tool. Your post on what we affectionately called the OPP, the official Peloton Facebook page, was inspiring. Maybe to give people a little bit of background. I know I’m asking questions out of a different order than I usually do, but give us a little background of what prompted you to post that and how we got to that place of you posting it on the OPP.

I was hesitant to post it to it, to begin with. One of the reasons was out of shame of where I was, but then I thought about it. I thought that maybe I could inspire someone, and perhaps someone else is going through a similar story or knows of someone who is going through something similar, and maybe it could help them. That’s when I decided to post it.

When we set ourselves up for certain specifics like, “I’m going to do this or that,” it can be full of all these pressures that we put on ourselves. Is that what you mean when you say it was a sense of shame that you were feeling? Describe for people who didn’t see the post what that post is.

I was someone who was always a very active person, an avid runner, and into health and fitness, then I became sick in 2015. I was running on a treadmill and out of nowhere, I lost complete feeling in my right foot. I fell and sprained my ankle. I had a nerve conduction study done and it showed that the myelin sheath, which is the fatty outer layer that covers your nerve that allows those nerve impulses to travel, that’s covering my peroneal nerve was completely gone.

I was unable to dorsiflex move my foot, so I dropped. Because of that nerve injury, I developed what’s called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome or CRPS. It’s a debilitating neurological condition where the pain is totally out of proportion to the original injury. It was like I was on fire and was being stabbed. It was awful. Taking a shower was like being tortured. It was insane the amount of pain that I endured.

As a result of the medications to treat that and being immobile, I gained a substantial amount of weight. I believe 46 pounds was how much weight I ended up gaining. Coming from where I was to that, it was very hard to transform into that. Having that picture was a reminder of where I was and how unhappy I was with myself at the time.

I’m assuming that that’s a rare condition. I’ve never heard of it. It’s not that studying diseases is my hobby. My first thought was “Now I have something new to worry about. I didn’t even know that was a thing to be concerned about.”

It was around for a very long time, before the Civil War, but it was during the Civil War that those cases brought attention to the disease. There is a Netflix series about a young girl who has CRPS and the struggles that she went through with it. The word is getting out a little more. It is rare.

What is that show called?

I can’t remember the name. I’m sorry.

It’s no big deal. We’ll find it. We love documentaries. That’s why Tom is asking. We love to be educated on these things because we are lucky to be able to talk to many people. We end up learning a little bit about things, like a lot of things. We to dive a little deeper into stuff instead of just learning the surface of it.

Being a nurse, that was hard because I had never heard of it. I’m seeing doctors and they were like, “I don’t know what that is.” It was a very scary time.

Was it hard to figure out what was going on because it’s rare? It’s not top of mind as an option.

It was hard. I happened to have an appointment already prescheduled with a neurologist to talk about migraines. When I came into the office and he saw my leg in the boot, he asked if he could take a look and I allowed him to. When he saw my leg, he was like, “You have CRPS.” I’m like, “What?”

When you were like, “This thing happened. I had nerve conduction, whatever it was called,” I’m like, “I think somebody skipped a chapter.” There’s no way that you’re like, “Let’s go to the nerve induction service center and get that looked at.”

That’s the thing with medical care. It’s not like we have a diagnostic that you can plug something in and figure out what’s going on. There are so many symptoms. That’s super complex because I get migraines. I wouldn’t have thought to go to a neurologist for my migraines. I know some people have them and not only do they have them constantly. They have them and it’s super debilitating. Mine are annoying, but very rarely do they get bad enough. I have clusters of them. If I get 2 or 3 in a row of the aura, I know it’s going to be a bad one, but if I just get one, oftentimes, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s different for different people.

What led to the nerve conduction study was when that injury initially happened, my husband brought me to the Emergency Department. It was a small town hospital. The MRI was shut down for the day. They did an X-ray. That showed nothing. All they could do was pump me with pain meds. They were the ones who said, “You need to have a nerve conduction study.” That’s where that transitioned to. I followed up with an orthopedist and had that test done.

Do pain meds even help with something like this?

I was on every pain med possible. We started with Percocet, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and medical marijuana. I had epidurals and sympathetic nerve blocks. None of that worked. The only thing that worked for me, and I’m very grateful, was a smart doctor who said, “I read a study on medication that works for chronic nerve pain and it’s methadone.” A low dose of methadone taken twice daily is very helpful.

That’s a scary jump.

Wasn’t that terrifying?

It was terrifying because of the stigma surrounding that.

Not only the stigma but as a nurse, you get drug tested.

At the time I wasn’t working as a nurse. I lost my job because of how sick I was. That was unfortunate. I was on the couch. I was getting up to go to the bathroom and that was my life. I was living on the couch. For someone who, as active as I was, I would get up in the morning and run 6 miles before work. I would work all day. The kids would get off the bus. We would go for a 3 or 4-mile hike together. On the weekends, we would go to the state park and would hike. I was someone who was always moving and always very active. To go from that to lying on the couch all day long was devastating.

In February 2023, I was out running and got hit by a car. It’s nothing compared to your story, don’t get me wrong, because I did recover very quickly and I was very fortunate. That timeframe has taken me forever to get my head right. Even though I’ve been working out and been able to do things, still, there’s something that feels a little bit off and it’s never gotten back to that part before. It’s weird. It’s strange the trauma that you go through when you experience all of your independence being taken away. You’re thriving. Of course, that’s going to feel awful.

It is awful as to what you were saying about independence. I am also visually impaired. I have a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which I was diagnosed with back in 2005. That was something that I already had before this event happened to me. I’m unable to drive because of it and the stress of dealing with this sickness and this injury exacerbated the RP. I was sent to a specialist in Boston. He thought, “In addition to that, I think you have an autoimmune component to this.” He prescribed chemotherapy. I was on chemotherapy for three years in addition to trying these pain meds and interventions. It was a hard time.

How did the chemo mix with the nerve condition? Was that problematic or were they not affecting each other?

In one way it wasn’t helping it. They thought, “Maybe this will help it,” but it didn’t. One of the drugs called Velcade causes neuropathy. That’s one of the side effects. At times, I felt like it was making me worse and then I started having numbness and tingling in my fingers.

I didn’t know if it makes chemo more intense to have a condition like that.

If you already have all this pain from nerves, then you add something on top of it, is that going to make the condition more painful because the chemo is already doing damage?

I didn’t experience that. I’m grateful for that. I didn’t feel as though it made that component worse.

At what point in this journey that you went through did they say to you, “You’re never going to be able to run again?” How soon into this did that happen?

It was right when I went to the neurologist’s office. When he saw my leg and saw that I couldn’t flex or point my foot, he immediately went on this list of things that I would never be able to do. I remember thinking, “My life is over.” I know that there are worse things that can happen to a person, but that was my livelihood. On top of it, not being able to drive, I rely on walking a lot. Not being able to do that as well is a lot. It was too much.

Is this curable or manageable?

How did it work for you? It doesn’t sound like everyone ends up in as positive a place as you are.

To be honest, out of everything I’ve tried, methadone is the only thing that worked. I was prescribed that in 2019. I was on it until 2021. It took the majority of my pain away. I was living in 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10 pain days, and down to maybe a 1 or 2 out of 10. For the most part, I am now pain-free. I do have some days where I have very minimal pain, but I would say maybe 3 out of 10.

First of all, I’m glad to know that. I’m glad you are feeling much better. Are you saying that the methadone cured it? What happened that you were able to start running and you were able to feel better? What did they do?

Because the methadone lowered my pain so much, I was able to tolerate physical therapy. I was getting into the pool three days a week doing aqua therapy, aqua jogging in the pool, and doing specific pool-related PT exercises to help strengthen my ankle. I was able to start moving again because the pain was too severe that I wasn’t able to before.

If they stop prescribing the methadone, how do they know you’re at a point where that’s okay? Does that mean it’s gone or you’ve strengthened the muscles to where your strength overrides it? What’s the metric there?

The nerve did repair over time. I’m not 100% as I was before at all. I still have some deficits. I’ll take those deficits. I can run and do all those kinds of things. I’m fine with it. The problem with methadone is I don’t think a lot of doctors know about this I don’t think a lot of doctors are willing to prescribe it. For example, we have a friend who has an amputation from an injury and his doctor is not willing to prescribe it for him. He is suffering a lot.

That is very hard and I wish more doctors would get on board with it. My doctors locally have a few patients who have chronic nerve pain and have been taking it for years. They felt comfortable prescribing it for me. I don’t want to say that it necessarily cures it, but I think what it does is it resets some of those neurons in the brain. It resets that constant firing of pain because I’ve been off of it for years now and I’m doing well.

How scary was that to go off when this thing had helped so much and now it’s time to wind this down. Was that nerve-wracking?

I was terrified. My doctors weren’t pushing for me to go off of it but I was because I’m a very minimalist person. The type of person that I was, if I had a headache, I wouldn’t even take Tylenol or any over-the-counter. It’s just the type of person that I am. I asked to go off of it and they worked with me, so I was able to do it.

You are a strong lady. Through all of this, that was your goal. You wanted to go and run a marathon after all of this. What made that the number of miles that you wanted to do? Is that because you had done it before and you were like, “I want to get back to there,” or was there some other factor?

I have never run a marathon. It was always on my bucket list. When the doctor was like, “You’re not doing that,” that’s when I was like, “I’m aiming for that. That’s what I’m aiming for.” When I got back into running, my mother passed away on May 19th, 2021. She was my best friend and my biggest fan. Running was always a way that I dealt with grief and stress. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to run again. I started doing the run-walk programs that Peloton offers. In there, you can run an audio program. I started building up.

At this point, I had been walking again. I was able to walk for 30 minutes, and then once I was able to walk for a full hour, I started working on the running and walking components together. Once I was able to fully run again, I said, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it for me and my mom.” I did it. Behind me is my medal and the certificate on the top.

That’s amazing. Congratulations. What a badass you are. That’s awesome. You’ve been through the wringer. I have a very logistical question. Since not being able to see and you can’t drive, how do you run safely? How do you train on a treadmill or outside without being scared?

It is scary. The disease that I have is like tunnel vision. I do have some central vision, but my peripheral vision is gone. My superior vision is worse than the rest. Low-lying branches and kitchen cabinets, I hit my head a lot on those kinds of things. I overcompensate by turning my head a lot. I’m fortunate enough that I live near a rail trail and there are no cars. It’s bikes and people. It’s a pretty safe space to run. I’m very excited also to say that I applied for a running guide dog and I was approved. It’s guiding Eyes for the Blind. They are the only company that does running guide dogs in the world. I will be receiving him or her in 2026. Unfortunately, I have to wait.

I’m sure there’s a long list and it’s not just three weeks of training and they’re ready to go.

It’s a process that the dogs go through too before I even meet the dog.

Does that mean that you want to run another marathon? Is that on your list?

I’m thinking about it. I am running the half marathon on April 13th, but I’m thinking about doing another fall.

This might not be something you know the answer to yet because you don’t have your dog yet, but can dogs do 26 miles?

Yes. The person who started it ran several full marathons with his dog. The German shepherds definitely can.

I never thought about this.

They could with my speed

She’ll have a CNI turtle. I read this article the other day about a drug that they’re testing for dogs. There’s some chemical that seems to make little dogs live longer than they naturally have, which is why little dogs live longer. I never thought about it through this prism when I read the article, but they’re saying that they’ve had good results. They give this medicine the shot, however they do it, to bigger dogs, and dogs that normally live 8 to 10 years are living 12 to 15.

As you were telling that story, I was like, “That’s going to be a bigger dog. That’s going to be a German Shepherd, Labrador, Retriever, or something. How amazing would it be too if a dog like that could live another 5 or 6 years to take the pressure off of having to replace the dogs so you can continue living your life fully? I connected those two stories. I’m like, “That would be an amazing attribute.”

The article said that not only do the dogs live longer but they tend to live better. We had a dog that was a German Shepherd mix. In those last couple of years, his hips didn’t work right. He couldn’t jump up on the couch anymore, which was probably for the best. They were saying that it is the quality of their life maintained over that time period. They’re still being able to do the things that dogs want to do.

That would be great because when we first moved here, our neighbor is blind. She has a different condition than I but her vision is a lot worse than mine. She can only see shimmers of light. She has a seeing-eye pony. When she and I were talking about it, she said, “I’ve been blind my entire life. I have gone through a lot of seeing eye dogs. It was too much to go through that every 8 or 9 years.” She got the pony because the pony lives about 30 years.

Pure logistics here, how do you take a pony into places? Dogs can go to many places, even a small one can only go to many places.

She’s limited in that regard. I watch her navigate through our town and she’s impressive. She’s amazing.

I didn’t know that was an option. She spends a lot of time convincing people is a real thing. I work at a concert venue and people are always trying to do things like that to get better seats and stuff. You can’t ask them too many questions. If somebody showed up with a pony before knowing this, I’d have been like, “Horse shit. I don’t buy it.”

When you have an invisible illness, it’s so hard, especially blindness. It fits into a stereotype when you watch movies and everyone has those cataract-clouded lenses. They all have sunglasses and canes. It’s hard. People don’t get it. When I traveled with my husband, I had my walking stick with me. I was using my cell phone to take pictures and people were looking at me like, “What is happening?” Someone finally asked me, “I’m sorry if this is rude. How are you taking pictures? Aren’t you blind?” I explained it to her.

You’re sweet to be patient to explain that to people because you shouldn’t “have to,” but I can understand the general, “What is happening.” I can’t understand that.

Where I work, at the concert venue, you don’t want to go up to people and be like, “Prove it.” You want to protect that seating inventory for the people who need it. It’s a delicate balance to walk because if there are no checks and balances, then nothing stops people from being like, “I want these seats. I don’t care about the people that need this seating.” It’s a tough line to walk.

I’m sure some people abuse it.

There’s no doubt in my mind. I will go places and I will see dogs that have no business having those little vests on. You’re like, “Come on.” Switching gears back to Peloton, I never got around to how you got into the Peloton world. If you don’t mind sharing that, I would love to know your Peloton story.

My husband purchased the Peloton bike initially. My youngest son is on the spectrum and he was having a difficult time at school. We decided to homeschool him. To be homeschooled, you have to still participate in physical education. My husband said, “What about getting a Peloton bike?” I said, “Let’s do it.” We initially got it for him.

Who is your favorite instructor?

Susie Chan. I love Susie. She’s such a badass, running that Badwater. She’s amazing. She is very humble and soothing. Whenever I take her audio distance running workout, she makes you feel like you’re okay, “You’re going to be okay. It’s going to be fine.” There’s something about her. All of the instructors, for different reasons, are amazing. I love them all because I don’t just run. I use Peloton pretty much for everything, yoga, Pilates, cycling, and even meditation.

Do you have a tread as well?

I have a treadmill, but it isn’t a Peloton. I have the Peloton bike. I would love to get the Peloton tread.

One day that one will crap out.

Then it’ll be time.

I’m going to set up another little treadmill so that on bad days, the dog can run next to me.

I was going to almost ask it as a joke. I was like, “That might be a real thing.” All I can think about is the Jetsons where Astro would be on a little treadmill outside.

When that day comes, you need to have your own TikTok channel for your training videos with your dog.

You go viral

I can’t wait already. I’m excited for you.

I’m excited too.

What is your leaderboard name?

It’s Love_to_Move because that pretty much sums me up. I’m constantly moving. I started my own virtual fitness and wellness community designed to get people to move more and to be less sedentary. That’s always something that I’ve been passionate about. Even on my journey, a lot of people focus on weight transformation. For me, it wasn’t even about that. It was about being healthier because right at that time, I also started to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and pre-diabetes. I reversed all of that. For me, it was about being truly healthy and being my healthiest best self.

The non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is what took my mom out. She got hepatitis at a restaurant younger in her life. It was always out there waiting. In the end, they classified it as NASH or Non-Alcoholic something. The nurses are trying to be nice and they’d be like, “Was your mom a drinker?” I was like, “Not at all.”

It’s awful.

That is awful to make that assumption.

I didn’t even mean it like that. I meant it’s awful it’s one thing when life gives you what you perceive as karmic back from your actions. When you didn’t do the thing to have that happen to you, and you still get it.

I had one nurse doubled down and like, “Sometimes they hide it.” I was like, “We had a liquor cabinet that was covered in dust.” I remember when I was in college, we had a pack of Zima that sat in there for eight years. If I went down to the refrigerator, there’s probably still a bottle of Bud Light commemorating Super Bowl ‘22.

It lasted in that refrigerator longer than they ran Zima.

I’m like, “I feel pretty confident she wasn’t sneaking it.” One more question. Were you able to return to nursing or can you not work? Did you find a different career? I’m curious.

I was cleared to return to work. I was working as a manager at a nursing home. It was hard because they weren’t honest about my hours and because I can’t drive, that made it difficult. That’s when I decided that I was going to start something on my own. I love nursing. If something pops up, I’ll gladly do that in addition to this. For now, I’m focusing on this. I have a lot of years of experience. I have a Master’s in Nursing. It’s tough.

Not only time but money is invested in it because it’s not cheap to get those degrees and that quality.

It’s incredibly inspiring that not only have you been through all of these things and you have such a wonderful outcome and outlook, but that you advocated for yourself and you kept going back to the doctors and you kept pushing. I know it’s exhausting. That’s from the little things that I’ve had to deal with. I can’t even imagine these chronic things that last forever. My hat is off to you for navigating that gracefully because I’m not nice when those things occur.

It is as frustrating as I’m sure it is that you don’t get to use your medical education. Were it not for that medical education, you might not have had the knowledge or wherewithal to get to an answer to navigate for yourself.

Having that credibility made it so that doctors would listen to me. That’s sad to say. I think if it had been different, maybe they wouldn’t have. It helped, but it’s hard. There’s something to say about having a spouse during all of this because he was a huge advocate for me. There were times, even though I’m a nurse, I wasn’t able to advocate for myself because I was in so much pain and medicated with the drugs that I was on. It was hard to even have a conversation with me.

I was forgetful. I was not sharp at all. I was constantly lethargic. I was in a very different place. I wasn’t myself. It’s hard when you look in the mirror and you don’t recognize yourself and you don’t feel like yourself. I was a very slowed-down version of me. Even then, it was hard to advocate for myself. I think having that nursing background and the doctors knowing that I was a nurse made them listen more.

Unfortunately, there are always people who take advantage. There are always people who don’t get listened to and who aren’t taking advantage, and it sucks. I’m glad you threaded the needle and you are in such a good place. Congratulations on everything. Regardless of what race you decide to do next, if any, we’d love to share that with the community when that happens. Please keep us updated. When you get your dog, keep us updated.

February 27th is the anniversary of my injury. I would love to do a run and get a bunch of people to run together that day to celebrate my being able to run and move.

We need to put that out there in the Peloton universe because I know that they would. I would run with you. Let’s do it.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it. This has been a very fun and educational conversation.

Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it I’m honored.

Thank you for sharing so openly. I know it’s not easy and I appreciate it, not only on the OPP but here.

You’re welcome. Thank you.

‐‐‐

I guess this 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 social media 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 on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our Patreon where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. You get ad-free episodes. If we get them early, you get them early and you get my Green Day story. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://theclipout.com/

Latest Podcast

358. Peloton Treads & Rows Added To Amazon, Plus Our Interview With Bonnie Smith
April 26, 2024

About Tom and Crystal The Clip Out Podcast

Keep up with all the Peloton news!