• Earnings call recap.
• Peloton & Hyatt forge new partnership.
• New sale on Peloton Bikes.
• Peloton teams up with Slow AF Run Club for Tread giveaway.
• Peloton UK lays off delivery drivers?
• Ross Rayburn leaving Peloton.
• Why last week’s JSS ride isn’t on-demand.
• Assal Arian announces in-person class at PSL.
• Olivia Amato practices her drawing skills.
• TCO reviews Katie Wang’s Intervals & Arms.
• The latest artist series features Laufey.
• TCO Top 5.
• This Week At Peloton.
• There’s a new meditation challenge.
• A sneak peek at upcoming artist series.
• Weekly roundup.

All this plus our interview with Jennifer Brown!

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy Steps Down Plus Our Interview With Jennifer Brown

You had that big yawn before we started. You should take a nap.

Not all get the privilege to take a nap.

I guess we will power through with the nappy Crystal and the refreshed Tom. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have our earnings call recap. We have lots of Peloton news, including the new partnership, what’s going on with sales, and Peloton’s newest partnership on Instagram, as well as potentially a little bit of laying off. We also have several instructors that are in the news. We have the latest on the newest artist series. We’ll be talking about the newest content that you need to know about. No visit from Dr. Jenn. No visit from Angelo. We’re trying to keep it a little bit on the shorter side

That’s because of the earnings recap. We’re anticipating that to be a lengthy segment. Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. It is super helpful and greatly appreciated.

You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. It’s a great way to stay up to date on breaking news in between episodes like when the Ross Rayburn stuff broke. We had already recorded. Not much we could do at that point. You can also watch us on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut

You can find us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut, and for $5 a month, you can help the show and that is greatly appreciated. These things cost money. We had the new camera setup for the YouTube and we got the nice mics and the editing and all that stuff that goes into this, plus all the articles. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on there. If you have the means and you want to help out, that is certainly appreciated.

You will get in return ad-free episodes. If we get them early, you get them early. You will also get bonus content. There’s a whole other episode recorded every week. That’s 20 to 25 minutes long of stories that we didn’t have time to get to in the main episode. It lives over there on Patreon. If you sign up you get a little special feed. It’ll show up right in your podcast delivery system of choice. You don’t have to go to a special website or anything like that. It’ll show up like all your other stuff. It’s simple. If you go over there, there’s a tutorial. There’s all that let’s. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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The earnings call happened today. The major takeaway is Barry McCarthy is stepping down. Uncle Barry is no longer invited to the family reunions.

That is true, and not only will he no longer be CEO/president, but he is also resigning from the board. I feel like that has been missed. The reason I feel that is important is part of the conversation or one of the questions that got asked and then answered by the interim CEO was that the board decided that Barry was leaving. It’s not so much that Barry decided he was leaving.

At least that’s the way I took it because they were having a conversation or question-answer session about Barry specifically, how he had come into the company during a hard time, and how he had been the architecture of all of these changes to make sure that they could get back to positive free cashflow. Now, the board wants to change gears and focus on a candidate who is going to be the architect of growth. To me, that felt like so goodbye Barry.

It feels like they have a benchmark they could point to and save face, and then be like, “Now we’re going to do this other thing.” I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. It’s a fascinating situation. I’m glad I’m not there.

This feels different than whenever John Foley stepped down. I don’t have any emotional attachment to Barry.

We don’t hate him.

No. I feel nothing.

It’s like, “Okay. We’re going to get a new one now.”

The only thing I feel is a little uncertain about where that leaves the brand and where it leaves where everything is standing.

My first thought is there will be a fly on the wall in the Foley house today.

I feel strongly that some conversations are being had by all the founders. I feel like they have a group chat and it is hot today.

Foley remained on the board when he stepped down. Didn’t he? I don’t know that he’s there anymore.

I don’t think so. If he did, it was a very short time frame. I can’t remember. I think he stayed on for a little bit as they made the change or they had the transition, but then he left the board as well.

I also wonder, when it comes to finding the next one, who wants it?

They were talking about how they have an executive search team. Who wants this job now? Who wants to touch this with a 10-foot pole? I wouldn’t, and I love Peloton, even if somebody came to me today, not that I would be qualified in any way, shape, or form.

You would say yes because we would make a bunch of money before they fired you.

That’s fair, but I wouldn’t want to do it. I would not want to do the job. I would second-guess every decision that I made. You need somebody coming into this with fresh eyes and an ego the size of an entire country, but also they’re going to be such an asshole. That’s what you need, but then when you get somebody that polarizing, they start making changes to everything. The culture was already gone because of what Barry did. I don’t I don’t know where we go from here.

It’s it will be fascinating to watch and it will be interesting to see the caliber of the candidates available. I think a lot of people are going to look at it like, “I don’t want to do that.” One of the things that made Barry look at it is that he’s towards the end of his career. He had already retired. He came out of retirement to do this.

He got paid well.

For sure, and a lot of stock options that are never going to turn into anything. He did okay, but there wasn’t the same pressure on how this would affect the rest of his career. That being said, the bar is pretty low for what success would look like now.

I have to give Barry credit. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the choices he made or didn’t, he put his heart and soul into it. He put a lot of time and effort into it. I know there are a lot of people who are like, “Thank God he’s out of there.”

I can’t help but notice that for the most part, people say, “He shouldn’t have done that.” They say that over and over again, but they never have the next part of the sentence which is, “Here’s what he should be doing.” I don’t hear anyone saying, “This is what Peloton should be doing.”

I heard a lot of that today.

It seems to me that it’s always stuff like, “They need to make more money.”

Everyone is saying at this point that they need to go back to their roots. I do agree with that to some degree.

What does that mean from a business sense?

I don’t know. What they mean is the culture, and I don’t know if you can.

You can’t have millions of users and have the culture that it had in 2017.

I miss it.

For sure, but I don’t know how you get there with this many people.

I don’t know. We also need to talk about the fact that not only has Barry stepped down but they also announced that they were completely doing a restructuring. They’re going to cut out $200 million in cost. That means 400 people are losing their jobs. Most of which is going to be immediate. A few minutes after this, you’re going to hear me talk about the fact that the entire UK delivery team is going to be cut. I was thinking, “I hope this isn’t something bigger.” It turns out it was something bigger. This is a huge part of it. This is always the hardest part for me because this is the real person. Barry McCarthy is going to be fine. John Foley was fine.

Barry McCarthy is not going home from the office today with a box full of books and a fern, wondering how he’s going to make his mortgage payment.

I worry about the people who will be affected, but it does matter. It’s like when they had the big cut where it was Black Friday. That was a massive restructuring and it was sad. This is sad too. I didn’t feel like they spent enough time talking about that. They glossed over it and they kept calling it a restructuring program like it was something that was happy.

They did say words that were kind like, “These are difficult decisions,” and stuff like that. Because it was so scripted, it was not that dramatic. I did not feel like the people being affected like this got their due, and they did not talk about who was getting cut. The delivery team in the UK did not get mentioned. That bothers me. You need to talk about where these cuts were in my opinion because they’re so nameless now. We don’t even know where the cuts are happening. It’s cold and corporate. That’s the thing.

If you think about it, when this is over, there’s a Q&A session where the investors never asked about that because they don’t care. It’s just numbers.

Going through all this, learning about Peloton has taught me one thing, it’s not to like investors. That’s what it has taught me. I do not like the stock market. I do not like the way that these people act. It was funny because right after the call, the stock market went up, but about 10 minutes after that, it plummeted. It reached all-time lows yet again if we could not be lower. We could barely go lower. There’s nowhere else to go. I have to go check and see where we are right now.

Part of the restructuring is that they are going to be reducing expenses. Half of the changes are coming from the savings from those people leaving. They’re cutting those salaries. Half of it is coming from the savings in a bunch of areas. They’re going to be cutting back on marketing, R&D, and all these places. That was a little disconcerting because It felt like the questions were all over the place and they were dancing around things.

They were like, “We’re going to cut back on marketing,” and then so the questions were like, “How are you going to bring on new people if you’re cutting back on marketing?” They were like, “We’re not cutting back on marketing that much. We’re only cutting back a little bit. We’re going to be careful about how we spend those marketing dollars.”

I see this with concerts all the time where a show doesn’t do what they think they’re going to do or a sports team doesn’t do what they think they’re going to do. Their first thing is like, “Let’s cut marketing.” The problem is you have not invited enough people to the show. Is that the problem?

I know Peloton will not be happy with me saying this, should they ever listen. Here’s a question. What happened to Ben? I don’t think he ever got replaced. He left, but now I’m like, “Was that part of this? It was just quiet.”

 

Did he see the writing on the wall?

I don’t know. That’s very possible. How do you get more well-connected than somebody knowing all of the communications? The fact that they haven’t replaced his role makes you raise an eyebrow. What does that mean? The stock market is no longer as low as it was. It’s hovering around $2.77. Our new interim co-leaders are Karen Boone and Chris Bruzzo. Both of which are board members.

Karen Boone has been with the board since 2022. She was previously the president and CFO of Restoration Hardware. She also has quite a few things on her resume. The things that she’s been doing in addition to serving on Peloton’s board are serving on the board of directors for Sonos, Rivian Automotive, and several private companies including Tory Burch, Clif Bar, and Collective Health. Somehow, she also has time to be the president, CEO, and Co-person.

Chris Bruzzo has been on the board since December of 2023. He was most recently the Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of Electronic Arts. With these two moving into the co-leader position in the interim, that means that Jay Hoag will be the interim board president. He has also been on the board for a while.

Those are all those changes. The big positive thing that came from this call was that this was the first quarter they reported on having a positive free cashflow, which is what Barry has been working on for two years. Can you believe it’s been two years that Barry has been there? We’ve been doing this for a long time. We have seen some things. That means that after 13 quarters of not having positive free cashflow, they ended this quarter with positive free cashflow. That means $895 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents.

They feel that this is super important because it is going to be a key factor in Peloton re-negotiating their debt. They have a very big loan that we’ve talked about before that’s coming due this year. They needed to be able to refinance that debt. This free cashflow was a big factor in that. If they don’t get there, they’re not going to get good debt terms. If they don’t have good debt terms, that’s a problem. They also talked about how the company has seen a reduction in paid app subscriptions. I thought that was interesting. They also said that they did not see the growth in the business partnership area that they had hoped for.

The drop in the app subscriptions, do you think that’s because they went to this new model and a lot of people were mad and didn’t sign back up?

I think they counted on the free app bringing in a lot of people, and it did not. They were counting on that and that’s why they changed that model. There were a lot of people that they thought would stick around after their legacy pricing and they did not stick around. However, they also talked about how, in spite of all that, they still made more money on apps than they thought they would because more people are signing up for the App One tier than they expected.

A drop in raw subscriptions, but the people there are paying a little more. At the end of the day, the cash is higher.

That is correct. Going back to where they’re going to be saving money, they talked about how the marketing strategy is going to be a big thing and that’s going to change. They’re going to focus on the effectiveness of how they spend those dollars. For example, they send out the marketing, and it’s directed at anybody who might want to be part of Peloton. They’re going to be looking at a specific type of person and try to go after that person.

Whoever they define is that.

They wanted to optimize it. It’s all about optimization. It’s not that they’re not going to be spending money on marketing. It’s that they’re going to be more specific and intentional with that. That also is going to apply to the markets that are overseas in other countries. They are not pulling out of those markets, but they are changing how they’re spending it. Even though they didn’t say it on the call, delivery was a part of that.

There are going to be other changes as well like how they are marketing to those people. They’re going to be using the local resources. I thought that was very interesting. They had this opportunity to say, “We’re saving money by cutting delivery drivers,” and they didn’t say it. Why didn’t they say it? It feels like there’s more to it. There’s always more. It’s more about what they didn’t say than what they did say.

I hope the two people on this call got some sort of bonus for doing this. That was an ugly position to be in. Some of them feel like they can’t answer the question because they don’t know how it’s going to fit the long-term strategy of whoever comes next.

Hopefully, they don’t have a new strategy. The strategy remains and they hire a person who wants to do that strategy. That’s how it should work.

If you don’t like where you’re currently at, then your strategy isn’t working. Why would you want to continue the strategy if it got you to a stock price of $2.75? What’s the point of getting rid of Barry if you’re going to keep doing the same thing? I get that it has to be difficult to answer some of those questions because you don’t know if you are creating a potential landmine for whoever comes next.

That’s a fair point. They are also focusing on the tread in the Tread+. Peloton wants to be known for its tread, not just its bikes. I saw some morons posting about that everybody knows that Peloton does bikes and treads. I completely disagree with that. If they’re in the Peloton community, they know that. I’m talking about outside of the Peloton community.

People use Peloton and bikes interchangeably.

They do, and so I completely disagree with that. I think that they need to. They said that the market segments that they are going after for the tread and the Tread+ are two times the size of the bike and that the bike continues to outperform what they think it’s going to. I do think they need to do that. They said that this is an area where when you talk about marketing, they’re going to be educating the consumer on what Peloton can do that’s different than what other people can do.

One of the examples they gave was this brand new partnership with the New York Road Runners and how they have the New York City marathon classes. You can train on the course when it auto-inclines just like the course does. Peloton feels like nobody else has done that. I don’t know if that’s true. I feel like NordicTrack did that two years ago, but I don’t know that NordicTrack was ever using that in the sense of training. It was more of a marketing. This is a stunt they did. It sounds ruder than I mean it to. We will see.

I think the problem they have with the tread market is it’s very much larger, but it’s also mature in a way that the bike market wasn’t when they started. There were lots of people who had never thought about buying a bike and decided to buy a bike. In the tread market, there are lots of people who have treads, but the problem is those people have non-Peloton treadmills.

They created a market that wanted a Peloton bike, but when it comes from a tread standpoint, now you’re waiting for someone to decide whether it’s time to get a new tread in a lot of cases for a lot of people. I think there are a lot of Peloton bike owners who want a tread but they already have one. They’re like, “When this one finally shits the bed, I’ll swap it out for a Peloton tread. Until then, why would I incur that expense?”

I agree with that, and they did mention that tread sales are still skewed toward existing members, which makes sense. We need to talk about the international market and the change in headcount that they’re doing. I do want to mention that they are going to continue to close showrooms, so go visit your showrooms while you can.

In regards to the showrooms, I have to wonder about that, the cost-cutting, and everything else. I suspect that means we will not be having Homecoming/Peloton On Tour. I could be wrong because they did that later in the year, but they had already announced it in 2023 around this time. They announced something was coming. They didn’t say what the details were. We’ll see on that.

Those are the major points that we covered this morning. In general, I don’t feel great about this. I want people to know that. I am usually the person that’s like the cheerleader. I don’t feel great about this at all. I’m not saying that the sky is falling and we all need to run for cover. I’m not saying that either. I feel like the company is a little lost right now.

Despite the fact that I didn’t have a strong connection to Barry, he had a vision and he was very set on that. I hope that with this change, they’ll be able to continue down that direction. It scares me when they say things like, “We don’t know what the next guy or gal is going to do.” That makes me very very nervous. All of this makes me nervous. I’m left with the most unsettled feeling that I’ve had since John Foley left.

It makes sense. They are definitely in flux. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Sorry, we don’t have a more chipper take on it. I will say though that there’s no need to panic here. In the worst-case scenario, they will get bought out. I don’t feel like they’re going to close their doors.

It’s too established of a brand to disappear from the landscape at this point. It has too much value.

I also need to mention that all of the classes that had been scheduled today got flipped to encore this morning. It freaked people out. After 5:00 PM, they were back on live. I suspected that was because they wanted to give people a minute to absorb the information. Their colleagues are gone. These are the people they worked with. They need a second, and probably they also don’t want to answer people’s questions because there are going to be a lot of them. I also think that must have been a very difficult decision, given those were live classes with members in them.

I think about that aspect. That’s pretty shitty, especially since a lot of people might have built a trip around it.

That is why I say never do that. This is an extreme example.

But then to have it pulled out from under you because of this, it’s like a double whammy. If the CEO of Coke steps down, I can still go buy a Coke today.

You could still take a Peloton class. You just can’t necessarily visit the place where they make the Coke though.

I guess so. Anyway, there’s your earnings call. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled Clip Out already in progress.

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Before we dig into the In The News Peloton segment of the show, you forgot to call out Bingo.

Don’t put that on me. I refuse to accept the blame, but I will give everyone the Bingo, and that is Marcel Dinkins.

Peloton and Hyatt forged a new partnership.

Isn’t that awesome? If you go back in the day, there was Hilton and there have been other partnerships like Westin.

Westin was the first one, wasn’t it?

When making a drastic change, the hardest part is convincing yourself that you're capable of it. Share on X

I believe so, and now Peloton and Hyatt forged a new partnership. You will be seeing at least one brand new bike in 800 hotels across the different countries that both companies exist in. You’re going to see it in Austria, Germany, the UK, and of course in the US. In addition to that, it sounds like some of them are going to be getting a Peloton row as well later on. I think that is the first gym setting row that we have seen.

Have we ever seen Treads out there?

I’ve seen a few. I don’t know how much of that is part of the commercial piece of it that Peloton does, where they sell things, or if it is like people buying a treadmill and putting it in there. It’s never been a Tread+ that I know of.

You would think that if you’re going to put it in a setting for the public, you would get the sturdier one.

There aren’t as many available because of how they got recalled.

That’s true. There was that long period of time. On the flip side, most of those public gyms have signs that say, “Supervise children.”

They couldn’t have bought them during that time frame. They weren’t available. That’s the point. They still weren’t there. The other thing that is also new in this particular partnership is if you use Peloton, you get loyalty points at Hyatt. We don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like. They haven’t announced that piece of it yet. We know at the very least that there’s going to be a 60-day free trial for the Peloton app if you are a member.

I said all of them are going to have at least a piece of equipment, but 400 participating hotels are going to have a curated selection of non-equipment Peloton classes on in-room TVs. You would be able to access the Peloton app through the television. That’s an addition to equipment. They also said, “Corporate meeting and conference attendees are going to engage with unique sets of non-equipment Peloton-based classes designed to inject energy and vitality into the corporate event experience.” That sounds very interesting.

That sounds like a lot of buzzwords. I hope there’s some synergy.

Sure, there will be synergy. It also said that the benefits of this partnership extend to Hyatt colleagues in qualifying countries offering them access to the Peloton App One and discounts on the Peloton hardware. More to come but that’s how they’re starting things off, which is a pretty big bang.

For me, the biggest piece of information there is the inclusion of a row at least in some locations. We used to talk forever about how when they were in these hotel gyms, they would sell bikes like crazy because people would try one and then they’d be like, “I love this. I need this in my house.” If you already have people going down to the gym who love Peloton and then they’re like, “There’s a row right here. Let me try this row,” and then they’re like, “This is amazing.” I think that could boost the Peloton row.

To add to that, they’ve steadily decreased the amount of storage that Peloton is available in. That gives them another place to display and try and have people check it out. I think this whole thing is great news. Nothing has changed in the stock market. The earnings call comes out tomorrow. Will it be down a dollar by the end of the day? I don’t even know. It’s crazy to me that this did not improve the stock market. What do you people want?

I don’t know what people want to see.

I saw some very crabby posts. I don’t want to call anybody out, but some people are trying to get clicks. Let’s just say that.

In an effort to drive the stock prices sky-high, some new sales are going on.

It’s not just on the bike. It’s on the row as well. I think it’s on the tread also. It looks like it’s $300 off of the tread package, and it’s $400 off of the bike or the row, and $700 off of select packages on the Tread+. There are lots of great sales. They all end on May 14th. I have had several people ask me, “Do you think this is the Mother’s Day Sale that they always have, or do you think we’re still going to see additional sales?” I don’t know. My interpretation of this based on timing was this is the Mother’s Day Sale.

It’s so close at this point. It seems odd that this would wrap up and then they’d roll out another one tied to Mother’s Day.

I agree.

If you don’t want to shell out money for a tread, you can register to win one.

You’ve probably heard of the Slow AF Run Club. If you haven’t, you need to because it’s amazing. There is a gentleman named Martinus Evans. He’s also known on Instagram as @300PoundsAndRunning. He has come out with a book and he’s been all over the place in the news. We’ve talked about him on the show before. He teamed up with Peloton to give away a Tread+. It’s super easy. Anybody can be part of this except for Alaska and Hawaii who are 18 and older. If you have never been subscribed to Peloton’s marketing emails, now is your chance. That’s all you have to do.

That’s interesting that it’s only for new people.

The sweepstakes will close on May 25th. They did one of these last year. I never saw who won, but presumably, they actually did it.

I feel pretty confident they did. Someone would have yelled at them by now. It’s also probably a fairly safe bet that anyone tuning in to this is not eligible to enter that contest.

Helper Bee Nikki wrote this article and I felt like she had a very helpful tip. If you’re already subscribed, pass them along to a friend.

Maybe your spouse isn’t or a bullshit Gmail account that you wouldn’t have created.

You didn’t have a bullshit email account because they did not exist when you were a kid.

Exactly, but when I was a kid, I would win radio contests all the time. I honestly have no idea how many. I used to keep track and I lost count at around 50. I kept winning them.

Were you a prize pig?

No. As a former promotion director of a radio station and frequent winner of radio contests, this is how I define a prize pig. A prize pig is someone who doesn’t listen but goes to any station they can find to get the free stuff. I was winning contests that required me to listen to their radio station, which is what they wanted. That’s what I did.

A little defensive, but not a prize pig.

I can’t stand the prize pigs. We would have frequent winners and sometimes the jocks would get frustrated. I’d be like, “They’re listening. This is what you want.” When they show up to the remote and stare at you until you give them a pass to see Godzilla, those people aren’t listeners. They’re going to leave your station for a different format. They don’t even care. If they’re listening and calling in, the only way they can enter that contest is by listening. Anyway, I won a bunch, but the rules were you couldn’t win twice within 30 days.

That’s why you tracked them. It’s like a cycle.

It was my period. It’s my menstrual cycle. I had a fake name that I used to win the contest.

I am now questioning your integrity.

This post was spotted in a group that will remain nameless because we don’t want to call anybody out. Someone was talking about the fact that they had heard that Peloton UK delivery drivers were given notice and made redundant.

In six weeks, they would no longer be needed. This makes sense when you think about the fact that they did the same thing in the US. I’m hopeful that the reason behind it is that they were able to change up their logistics. That was why. The timing with the earnings call and everything, and I know that we have to make money by the end of this. We have to be at a certain point, and it doesn’t give you that warm fuzzy feeling either.

They would almost have to partner with a third party. They just can’t stop delivering bikes.

Why didn’t they do that from day one? Is this something new and has been official, or is it because they already had the third parties, but now this is going to slow things down? Is there more to it? I’m not sure about that.

We will keep an eye on that and see what’s up.

There are still our Peloton delivery people within the United States. It’s just been paired down dramatically compared to what it was.

 

Do you know where they are focused?

In the UK?

No, the ones who were left in the US.

I don’t but my interpretation has been that it’s near their warehouses. The ones that are close to the warehouse where they still have stores. For example, there are no longer delivery drivers in Missouri because we don’t have any stores in Missouri. That would not make sense for them to be there.

Coming up after this, we’re going to do instructors in the news. We’re going to talk about the exiting of Ross Rayburn, so sit tight.

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It was announced that Ross Rayburn will be leaving Peloton.

He did word it very specifically that he was taking a break from teaching. He left it open that there would still be on-demand, potentially guest appearances. The wording that I received from Peloton directly was that he was leaving Peloton. I only say that because I know some people hung on to a little bit of hope that he wasn’t really leaving.

Like a sabbatical.

That was not my interpretation of the communication that I was given. This one hurts. He’s such a good guy. I get it though. He talked about finishing his book and publishing it has opened up a lot of opportunities between that, and anything that he wants to do to have another book, which could happen, and things like that. I could see that that’s going to give him a lot of different opportunities than he could do while he was at Peloton.

Is this the first instructor to leave who hasn’t burned their bridge on the way out the door?

No. Chaser Tucker and other instructors did not burn the bridge when they left because they still got to have a class and say goodbye, unlike some instructors. I don’t want to name any names, but Peloton is very kind in how they allow these instructors to leave, even when they are asked to leave, with one glaring exception, okay two glaring exceptions. They usually get a moment to say goodbye to the community in their own way and to also develop the narrative in their own way. The instructors who have left have largely done that even when they’ve been asked to leave.

Will you tell people on the Patreon who burned their bridges?

I don’t know. I might need a drink or two. It feels more like a meet-up conversation.

While we’re having you talk about awkward topics, how about getting us up to speed on why Jenn Sherman’s ride from this weekend isn’t available on demand?

Just to be clear, she had two rides. This is the 45-minute ride on Sunday morning. She was preparing for Mother’s Day and she was having her son in the studio. She needed to be focused on being a mom because her dear son Evan was there. Evan had a little too much to drink and I don’t know if all of you out there have ever tried to take a hard spin class after drinking very heavily the night before. It doesn’t go well. Your body rejects it.

There were about 10 minutes left in class, and his body rejected the alcohol from the night before. It was a little disruptive and I’m assuming that it will never be up, given that it’s been almost a week and it’s not up. I did not take the class, but by all accounts, she was wonderful with it. She was very torn between hopping off of her bike and taking care of her child and continuing her ride. She was saying things like, “Are you okay? Are you all right over there?” At one point she threw in a towel.

It sounds like she probably needed to throw the person next to him the towel.

I did hear reports of splatter. Sadly the person who got splattered did not get a free class. I don’t know that she was wearing leggings to be honest because it gets really hot in those studios. She’s a shorts-wearing gal. I could envision that she might be in shorts, unlike myself. I’m almost always in leggings. She had to struggle between her duties as a mom and still doing the class. She did, and Evan was very embarrassed. He took it to the JSS Tribe.

I saw the post. I felt bad for the guy. It’s a funny story, but most people over a certain age have had moments like this. Maybe not quite this high-profile, but the people we’re trying to shame are like, “Don’t be a dick. Almost everyone has had a moment like that.”

This will be a story that they tell forever in the Sherman household. I’m sure he was so embarrassed and Jenn Sherman I’m sure was embarrassed. Her first thing was like, “Is my kid okay?” and then taking care of the class.

Do you want to share a throwing-up story?

I do have a good one.

In solidarity with Evan, let’s both share our embarrassing throwing-up stories.

Full disclosure, the company that I worked with often had excursions where there was a lot of drinking. I was in the process of going through a divorce. I had never experienced singlehood in the normal age range that people do.

You have been in that relationship since you were very young.

I was down to partying at this time in my life. We went to a Cardinals game, the whole company, and we were in one of the suites where they give you everything for free. I took advantage. It was hot that day. On the way back to the shop, I threw up in the car next to my boss and the corporate manager. To their credit, they were like, “It happens.” That’s how they were about it. That was very gracious of them.

That is why we’re being gracious.

Everyone should be. Who hasn’t had a moment like that?

I’ve never done that. That’s awful.

I’ve heard the hurricane story.

The hurricane story was what they told us when we were in New Orleans. That wasn’t me. My version of this is when I was in radio, I was doing remote at a club called The Oz. It was a legalized rave. The club didn’t even open until midnight and it was on a Sunday. I was there from midnight to 2:00, doing a live broadcast. They just kept shoving drinks. I had never done it before like hosting a live broadcast, and they kept bringing me drinks. They were bringing me like jet fuel. The thing at the time that they were into was Grand Marnier, which is like drinking lighter fluid. It singes your throat as it goes down.

I remember afterward, we went to an IHOP and I didn’t feel good. I laid down on the IHOP sideways on the bench at the table we were at. I ordered food and I threw up under the table. I then popped up and I was like, “My food is here.” This would have been like 1998. I left a $30 tip. We’re sorry if everyone is disgusted by this but I think most people if they’re honest with themselves have probably had a moment like that and their youth or young adulthood. Don’t feel bad, Evan. Just don’t make it a habit. That’s the real secret.

You get one pass.

Those are funny stories as long as they’re not plural or as long as it’s a thing that happened.

If it’s once a month, then it becomes a whole different conversation.

Now, we need to talk. You’re going to get pulled into a room and talk to a lot of family members all at once.

I agree.

Assal has announced an in-person class at PSL.

It’s coming up. She’s going to have an in-person strength class and she said it was her debut. I did not realize she had not had an in-person class this whole time, but I guess that hasn’t worked out. That’s pretty cool.

Olivia Amato had a funny Instagram post.

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The look on her face got me.

Puma had her draw the Puma logo from memory. It’s pretty rough. My favorite part was when they put up a screengrab of their Instagram and replaced their logo with her. That was funny.

That was my favorite part too. That was great. I loved it and thanks to Olivia Amato for having a great sense of humor. That made my day.

We have a review over at TCO of the new Katie Wang intervals and arms stuff.

It’s on the row because we’d never seen that one in the row before. Helper Bee Tina took it and she loved it. She said it was a lot of fun. I am excited to check that out and hopefully, we will see a lot more of these in the future.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk about the newest artist series and we’ll have some new content for you to check out.

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The latest artist series features Laufey.

I have no idea. I did talk to Nikki about it because Nikki wrote the article about this artist series. She gave me some interesting feedback on it. She had never heard of this artist either but she listened to some of the music from it and she sounded very similar to Norah Jones. They could have extended this even to some stretching or some other classes, but there’s only one yoga class. That’s all there is. We were surprised that they chose to just do one, but they did. If that soft relaxing music is your jam, check it out.

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Let’s take a gander at The Clip Out Top Five. If you are looking for a class and you’ve been taking the same things over and over again and you want to check out something different but don’t know where to go, that’s what this is all about. These are listener-recommended classes. We’ll start with number one, in no particular order, your favorite Peloton ride.

This was a 30-minute feel-good ride with Ally Love and it took place on 4/14 of 2024. Daniela who’s March Dreamer on the platform said, “Ally Love’s feel-good ride from 4/14/24 had so much inspiration in that short 30 minutes.” Helper Bee Darcy also said that the music was amazing.

Number two, favorite Peloton tread bootcamp.

This is a bootcamp with Marcel Maurer from April 14th. It was a 30-minute tread bootcamp. Rebecca Allen said that she found a new connection with a German language instructor. She said that this was his English language debut and that it was awesome, the music, the motivation, and the instruction. Everyone should take it. if you haven’t checked Marcel off your list, that would be a good way to get to your bingo square. You’re supposed to be following along if you have it.

Number three, your favorite Peloton recovery ride.

With our good friend Sam Yo from April 21st of ‘24. It’s a 20-minute spring recovery ride. This was brand new to the platform. There’s never been one before. Helper Bee Kelly said that it was the perfect class to welcome a change in season. She’s been off the bike for three weeks with lots of life stuff going on. She randomly picked this class for a cool down and it was so timely for her. It was all about spring cleaning, possessions, expectations, and relationships. It ends with a Sam Yo mini-meditation. That alone is worth the price of admission. Maybe that means we’re going to see Sam Yo’s meditations on the platform.

There’s a slot opening up. Number four, favorite Peloton seasonal classes.

This is from the Earth Day yoga walk rides and walking meditations, like the whole thing. Seven classes were released for Earth Day in 2024. There was an Earth Day yoga flow with Dennis. You can read the list, but Miss Angie Mom used the Peloton to motivate her to get out into nature. She said she loved the outdoor classes. It got her out of her home office and time to enjoy the sun. You have to love that.

Finally, at number five, your favorite almost unstackable Peloton run. Please explain.

Oliver Lang said that he did Olivia’s 30-minute intervals run live on April 29th, and it was almost unstackable. He said, “Olivia pushes you to achieve your best and not let yourself be contained by artificial boundaries combined with a great playlist. This was an awesome class.”

Is that over-flexing? It’s unsackable for you guys, but not for me.

I’m not going to challenge Oliver that way, but if you feel the need to.

Here’s a quick look at what’s coming up this week at Peloton. If you’re a Disney nerd, there is a new Disney ride for you.

It’s with Ally Love and it is 15 minutes. Did you know that the Disney collection is up to 80 classes?

I did not but I see it here in this wonderful article at TheClipOut.com. My first thought was a Disney class and you get one 15-minute ride. They’ve been around for a hundred years. You would think they could come up with more than 15 minutes. You were like, “There are 80 other Disney classes,” I will restrain my anger.

Yes, you will.

A run for the real ones.

We’ve talked about this before but it is finally happening on Thursday, May 2nd, 6:30 PM Eastern, the second 90-minute live run with Mariana Fernandez. It’s going to be a 2010 run and you can take it live with Mariana, but we won’t be able to, or you can take it on-demand, which is probably what I’m going to have to do.

Okay, and then a weekly dose of pop culture.

Walk and talk with Matty are just that. It’s all pop culture. He tells you all the things that you don’t know that are happening and he brings in even the kid speak. They can learn some new terms and everything. He does these all the time. If you haven’t taken one lately, they are back each Wednesday at 9:00 AM Eastern. There is also a collection so you can take those at any time.

If you dig your pop culture, maybe I would recommend you Reel Spoilers.

He has a wide row of pop culture.

You know how we go off on tangents, and our tangents aren’t typically about throwing up in public.

You brought up that tangent.

Finally, yoga for anywhere.

This is great. Chair yoga is popping up. There’s going to be a new 15-minute chair yoga class. It’s going to drop on-demand with Aditi.

The month of May is upon us and we have a monthly challenge this time around meditation.

If you take a class, you can get a badge for 10, 20, or 31 days. Presumably, that’s your bronze, silver, and gold.m If you take that many meditations, then you will get a fancy new badge.

Don’t you think turning meditation into a competition defeats the purpose of meditation?

No, because it is Mental Health Awareness Month. This is to encourage you to take a meditation.

Meditate harder.

No one said you had to do it hard. You can do it as gently as you would like. Just do it.

 

If you take a look at the upcoming list of classes or the upcoming class schedule.

Specifically the studio classes, you can’t look at the list because there are only two weeks out.

You get a little sneak peek at the artist series yet to come.

First on the list, we have Black Pink. Next up, we have the Rolling Stone. People love the Rolling Stones. They’re okay.

They’re not my jam and I love classic rock.

I would love to see them in concert once, not even anymore, but back in the day, I would loved to have seen it because it’s a cultural icon.

They were probably the biggest classic rock act that has been touring during my lifetime that I have not seen because I was like, “I don’t care.” They are a big deal. They are just not my jam.

That’s okay. How about Justin Timberlake? How’s he doing for you? I figured. None of these were for Tom. It’s okay because you wouldn’t take them anyway.

That’s also true, but I like Justin Timberlake. I liked him when he hosted SNL.

He’s a talented guy. I appreciate his sense of humor, his playfulness with his songs, with his attitude. I know that there’s a lot of controversy about him and Britney, but I like him as a person.

Some of those stories, I’m like, “That’s not cool.” Also, he was nineteen.

I think he doubled down on some things recently. I learned that from Matty’s walk and talk, full circle.

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We started doing a new article every week over at TheClipOut.com, this and that. Just some little tidbits of things that maybe don’t necessitate a full article but to keep it on your radar.

Not everything needs to be a full article. It’s silly. This first one though, I’m hoping that later, we will get an opportunity to talk to Jess Malone. She is a segment producer at Peloton. As a segment producer, she’s close friends with several of the instructions. She was featured in a Today Show for a story. If you listen to the show all the time, you might remember when we talked about the help on Apple watches. It can call people.

We talked about how a Peloton employee was saved by an Apple watch. This was a year ago that this happened. This is the one. She was taking a class and had no concerns whatsoever, but her watch said, “You need to get your ass to the hospital stat.” She did and she was in afib. Even though she didn’t have any other underlying causes, she completely changed her diet and everything. It’s been a year since then and she’s running a marathon this.

She’s working at the right place.

I am hopeful that we will get to talk to Jess Malone on an upcoming episode.

We have a little piece about Aditi Shah.

Aditi is in probably the most glamorous trip and wedding that I have ever seen.

This is the next level.

If you thought that Ally Love’s wedding was next-level, this blows Ally Love’s out of the water. It looks classy on top of it.

The wedding is at The Pyramids. In the picture of her at the wedding, you see the pyramids and the Sphinx in the background. I heard that at the wedding reception, they answered the riddle of the Sphinx.

I wouldn’t doubt it. They had fireworks at this wedding in front of the pyramids. It’s life-altering just watching her Stories.

You were like, “You can do that?”

I figure they must be really rich. They had to get a special permit and they saw someone. That’s what I think.

That’s beyond rich.

We can’t say what we usually say. It might offend some people.

That’s FU money.

I have to also highlight Aditi’s beautiful gorgeous outfits that she has had during the entire trip. We have all at The Clip Out been watching breathlessly. Every day, there’s a new thing happening and the dress that is shown on this page, we are all referring to her as a Bond girl. She should be the next Bond girl because she’s gorgeous in this. It’s fascinating. This whole thing is fabulous. I love it.

Sam Yo has a new series called Seasonal Recovery.

We talked about it earlier.

How about the PSNY field trip?

We have not talked about it. DJ and music producer LP Giobbi had a bunch of classes that were featured in 2023 at the All For One Music Festival. Those classes are still there and the on-demand library, but she stopped to take photos with Alex, DJ John Michael, Denis, and Jess King. Maybe there’s more to come.

Coming up after this we’re going to talk to Jennifer Brown. She’s our member spotlight of the week. Stick around.

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Joining us is Jennifer Brown. Jennifer, how is it going?

Good. How are you, guys?

We’re good. Jennifer, thank you for dealing with all of the fun back and forth that we were all doing, trying to figure out these things. We’re still learning but I like to always start these interviews by finding out where you originally found Peloton and how you were like, “This is a good fit for me?”

The way I found Peloton was that my cousins had gotten a Tread+ and they said, “Come over and check this out. It’s cool.” It was relatively new. We’re talking back when Chase Tucker was still part of the team. I had done that class for the first time and thought, “This is cool but out of my price range.” I put it on the back burner at that point in time.

It was probably three years later that I had gotten to a point where I was like, “This is something that I would love to get into and check out a little bit more.” Honestly, I still wasn’t willing to pull the trigger on purchasing. My husband ended up being the awesome human being that he is. He went ahead and ordered it and surprised me when I was not home. I was on a trip. I came home and he said, “In two days, there will be a treadmill in the basement.”

Your first foray with Peloton was the treadmill. Not the bike. This is unusual. I don’t know if this has ever occurred. You are a rare creature. That’s amazing.

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I have tried out the bike a couple of times, but the bike is not something that I’m even looking at getting. I am a tread girl all the way.

To clarify, you have the tread, not the Tread+. I’m trying to figure out the timing of when you got it. I didn’t mean it like just the tread.

We’re not plus shaming you.

I was trying to figure out like, did you get it? Did you want the Tread+ or was the tread more economical or was it in the middle of the recall and you couldn’t get it? I was trying to figure that out.

It was a little bit of both, honestly. It was in the middle of the recall, but it had nothing to do with that. I liked the fact that they came out with a lower price point because I don’t know. Can I give you just a little bit of a story about why this is such a big deal? That will help explain why. If I’m being honest with you, I don’t give a crap about the treadmill itself. It’s the trainers and the instructors. That has been a huge part of my story.

Jennifer’s Weight Loss Journey

I had mentioned that I have been on a weight loss journey. I’ve lost 188 pounds. In that, it started gradually. I would walk outdoors. I joined a gym and I would go and do different things at the gym. I did a lot of spin classes. I rode bikes but it was never like, “I have to have a Peloton.” I started with an inexpensive treadmill in my basement. At that point, you level up in fitness and you continue to grow in what you’re doing. Especially if you stick with it and you continue to go down this path, the next obvious thing would be to upgrade the treadmill.

I had made mention to my husband about upgrading the treadmill. I hadn’t been stuck on meeting Peloton. I was back and forth between it. What ultimately made me go with it was that first interaction that I had at my cousins with the trainers themselves. The way they spoke and the way they motivated you to do a little bit more or to go a little bit harder. That was my initial thought on it. That’s where I was happy with the price point. At this current moment, I would 100% buy five Tread+. I was completely sold at that point on being willing to spend that money because it’s such a huge investment. As I said, I still was not fully ready to do it and my husband was like, “Check done and bought done.”

For me, the fact that he made that purchase has been completely life-changing but it all has to do not necessarily with the belt itself or the way that the mechanics of it or anything like that. It is all day, every day the people that teach the classes. They are the reason that I am such a huge promoter. I’m creating advertisements left and right for Peloton. You wouldn’t believe how many people are like, “I ordered a treadmill because of you. You start keeping tabs on this.”

That’s what referral codes are for.

First of all, huge congratulations. You slid out that 188-pound weight loss like it was no big deal. That’s an entire person. That’s a lot of weight to lose. Huge congrats to you.

Thank you.

That’s stunning. That is a jaw-dropping number.

You do not have to answer this question, but I’m curious if you did that through diet and exercise, through medical weight loss, through some surgery, or a combination of those. How did that work for you?

It was a combination. I initially lost 100 pounds through diet exercise and changing everything that I had ever done in my life. I have always been considered obese since I was six years old. That was probably the first time that weight became a factor in my life. At age 36, I was technically in a roundabout way. I don’t know how to explain it fully because I’m a unique case. I had major issues with blood sugar. I had severe gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with my son and have always struggled with metabolic issues.

I’ve had high blood pressure and a lot of health conditions that have been reasons enough for me to go, “This is scary at age 36. I have to get this under control,” because I was worried about who was going to take care of my young son. I have an older daughter also and my husband had health issues. It was one of those things where it got me saying, “I have to do something different. I don’t want to live this way.”

I had spent too many days doing nothing. It got to a point where I needed to fix that. That first 100 pounds, I changed a lot. I stopped drinking soda. I do all the things. I hired a dietitian to teach me about food and portion sizes. I did a lot of legwork. I’ve done a lot of mental work because I suffer from binge eating. A lot of things and a lot of mental work needed to be done. I went through about eight months when I saw no more weight loss.

I was doing all of the same things. It took me three years to lose that 100 pounds. Typically, a year is a long time. Three years is really a long time. I wondered if there were underlying health issues that I needed to continue to control. At that point, I went and met with the doctor. She has been phenomenal in this whole journey of me getting to this point, I told her everything I was doing. She said, “Typically, I make my patients do food journals for at least 4 to 6 weeks before where I will even consider prescribing.” I pulled my phone out and said, “I’ve been food journaling for five years.”

I’ve been doing the work. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I needed help fixing that, so we did some diagnostic testing. I don’t know if it’s diagnostic testing. It seems that’s what it should be called. It’s like a breath test to determine your metabolism. I don’t know if you have ever heard of an RMR test. That was able to pinpoint the number of calories that I needed to be eating to be more precise. That was one thing. With my health history and blood sugar issues, I started a GLP-1 medication called Mounjaro. I have been using that medication. September of 2022 was when I started that. It’s relatively new after it had been approved.

You got in early.

I’ve been on that since and it has made a huge difference in my weight loss progress. I was able to lose that 88 to 89 pounds in about a year. There’s that whole debate on obesity being a disease versus an actual lack of willpower. With my story, I don’t have a lack of willpower. It has to be something that’s inside of me that needs to be fixed. That’s where I am now. I continue to workout and continue to eat the same. I want to stay where I’m at now. That has been the hardest part, honestly. It’s maintaining.

What about the maintaining aspect that you find harder than the losing aspect?

When you’re losing weight, you have a goal in mind and you’re constantly working toward something. I had things in place. I played little games with myself. It’s not necessarily that I ever had a goal but you get wrapped up in a mindset like, “I got to do this by this time and this by this time.” It’s hard not to be that way, but the hardest part now is not having something to do. Now, I have things to do. It’s just not weight-related because I have been trying to take the focus off of counting calories so much and being so exact with everything.

I’m not trying to tell you how to feel. This could be a projection on my part. With my own weight loss, I would feel it’s dangerous to tell yourself, “I’m done now.” When you get to a maintenance phase, I would think that feels scary. What if I’m just letting myself off the hook? It all comes back.

I’m also curious whether you are still taking aGLP-1 or if they have taken you off of that. I know that there are people who take maintenance doses and that it’s a little bit of a different protocol.

To answer Tom’s question first, it’s scary. I talk about this a lot on my social media because this is where I’m at with things now. It’s continuing to try to help inspire others to see that there’s a real possibility of taking control and doing things on your own. Being a person who can do what you say you want to do, it’s scary for me. I’m very honest about that in terms of I don’t want to go back to where I was.

I started this whole thing at 342 pounds. That’s an astronomical number to me now because I’m at 153. My flux weight here and there. I’m right where I want to stay. I don’t want to get any smaller than what I am. I just want to be healthy and strong. That’s ultimately been my goal. It’s longevity in life and being able to live a quality of life, not to look a certain way. It is scary. It’s learning how to trust yourself and knowing that you don’t have to write it all down.

While that is how you teach yourself, it’s not a way to live. You live constantly worried like, “How many calories is this?” I’m not going to say that when I eat something, I don’t think that way. That’s something I’m working through right now on my own to create healthy habits in how I eat and how I move forward after the weight loss process and continue to stay where I’m at. Also, growing in my fitness level and my strength levels.

I don’t know if that answers that question. It’s terrifying and I’m there. I’m scared, but I have to lean into the fact that I’ve created a lot of health in my life and push towards that. I keep working towards my goals of where I’m at now and what I’m doing in that. To be honest with you, I had two pieces of cheese pizza for lunch.

It’s not like I’m sitting here completely changing every single thing I’ve ever done. It’s learning how to be balanced because 5 or 6 years ago, I would have eaten seven pieces of pizza. There’s a big difference in what I do now. It’s not always what I’m eating. It’s how much of it and knowing that I’m okay if I have pizza. I’m okay if I do these things because I’ve created a lot of other healthy things that work around it.

You’re allowed to enjoy things. When you’re in a weight-loss mode, it’s so easy to get focused on the restriction aspect of it because, in the short term, that’s the road you’re going down. When you start to loosen the death grip on it, that feels like, “Am I getting out of control?”

People turn it into, “I have to do this. It’s horrible.” They turn it into that negative. That’s why people fail at it because it’s not fun. They don’t find a way to make it fun. I’m guilty of that myself. That’s how I speak from experience.

People are also in such a hurry when it’s the weight-loss mode. You just want it to be done. You want to get past it. You want to get to the other side. It’s like, “I can’t have this piece of pizza today because I’m in weight-loss mode. I have to hurry up and get through it so I can be done.” A lot of people who struggle with food issues also struggle with black-and-white thinking. I say that from somebody who I struggle with that. It’s like all or nothing. There’s no in-between.

Going back to the willpower aspect, the problem with willpower as a concept in terms of food is that there are some people for whom that is true. I am one of those people, but there are a lot of people for whom that is not true. Oprah Winfrey has famously struggled with her weight her entire life. I’m like, “Are you going to tell me Oprah doesn’t have willpower?” That woman knows how to get things done. There is more at play for a lot of people. What makes that such a hard nut to crack is many different roads get you to that point and they’re not all the same. Therefore, the solutions aren’t all the same. You see it as a problem and you want a solution.

Combatting Stigma

That’s the thing too, as far as the stigma around GLP-1 medications and the utilization of them. Crystal, to answer your question you asked me about whether or not I will taper off or titrate down off that medication. The plan is for me to remain on it long-term because I do have issues with type-2 diabetes and blood sugar. I need to manage that.

The thing that’s so frustrating to me about that whole GLP-1 meds is that most people don’t realize the correlation between obesity and type-2 diabetes. The fact is most of the time, if you have type 2 diabetes, it’s because you’re obese. It’s not every time. I’m not a medical professional but I’ve done a lot of research on this because it affects me.

We live in an acute society where we don’t treat things until they become a problem versus treating them before they become a problem. I’ve done all the things that I’m supposed to be doing to correct the problems. It’s not quite enough to continue to maintain it fully. There were times when I would go in for fasting blood sugar numbers in my doctor’s office and they’d be like 221. A normal blood sugar is under 99. I’ve never had a blood sugar until now that was 99 or less. It was either 99 or more. Now my blood sugar is 75.

Congrats. That’s amazing.

Thank you. Those are the things I focus on now with this. The fact that it’s doing its job has made me feel so much better. I haven’t had any massive side effects from it. The worst that I’ve had is constipation, which I share freely about as well. There’s so much stigma with it. I hope to put some factual information out there as a person who has used it for a pretty long time.

It’s been a great tool for me to get healthy. That’s what it is for me. It’s a tool. It’s not my identity. It’s not something that I want to make. I share that and I use it. I share it with anybody interested in knowing more about it. It’s been great for me. It has helped me to be able to repel into doing the things that I want to do like training to run a half marathon and things that I never imagined possible in my life. That’s attributed to the weight loss because it’s not just medication. It’s making sure you’re eating the right things and eating the right sizes of things. You’re moving your body, hydrating, and overall taking care of yourself.

The fact that you are talking freely about it is amazing. I know there is a lot of stigma about it. I appreciate you speaking freely about it. I know a lot of people have questions about it. There are a lot of people using it that don’t say that they’re using it, which I even get. There’s so much stigma around it that I can understand not wanting to. That’s awesome that you are willing to share that information and educate people. Thank you for that.

 

There’s so much of a mentality in our society that’s like, “People need to lose weight but that weight doesn’t count.” It’s like, “The surgery doesn’t count. The sleep doesn’t count. The GLP-1s don’t count.” It’s not about you wanting them to be healthier. You just want people to do what you want them to do.

Our society as a whole likes to say, “Work smarter, not harder,” in every aspect except for weight loss. loss. If you don’t work hard at it, then it doesn’t count. That’s so frustrating to me because it’s like, “Why does it matter? I found the way to work smarter, not harder.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s still damn hard.

It’s also not like you’re not doing the “right things” as well.

You’re still eating well, exercising, and many things that a lot of people aren’t doing in general in their lives. Those things count. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in our society who think there are a lot of people who are trainers who have 0% body fat and they look amazing. They lifted some weights one time when they were seventeen and it was super easy for them.

Training For A Half-Marathon

They’re like, especially to older women, “Do the things. It’s not that hard. Do what I tell you to do and it’ll be fine.” I work with a lot of women who are perimenopausal and menopausal, and it’s not that easy. I think any tool that works for people is helpful. I want to hear more about this half marathon that you are training for. Tell us about that.

It’s wild and crazy. When I first started this whole run journey, the reason that I decided to run was because I always was like, “I can’t run. That’s impossible.” I was the kid that would walk with the PE teacher. When I was a kid, we had to do a physical fitness test and part of that was a mile run. We ran a block four times and I walked with the PE teacher because I already knew that I was not doing that. You’re supposed to do it in fifteen minutes and there was no way that I was doing it. I never accomplished that goal in elementary or middle school.

Same. You are with your people now.

As I started going down this road of working towards fitness and health, I loved to hike and walk. I love to do those activities outside, but I live in Iowa. It gets cold. I had to talk to my husband. We got the el cheapo treadmill as they call it. It was a clearance sale treadmill at Walmart for $150. I got that and I was like, “I can at least walk on this.” One day, I sat there and I was like, “What if I do run? What if I give it a go? What if?” I cranked it up and my starting run speed was 3.6 miles per hour. That’s still slightly over fifteen minutes if you time it out.

4.0 is fifteen minutes. It’s just under. That’s like 16 minutes a mile.

I decided at that point, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to do 1 mile and shuffle my way through it.” It was hard but I did it. I was like, “I’m going to keep trying, going through the motions.” It was going to be so slow and I wasn’t going to stress out about the time. I was going to say, “Once I hit the mile, I could stop running.” I looked like I was dying every single time. My face was purple. I was sweating, then finally, I kept doing it. I was like, “I’m going to do this every day for 30 days and see if I can do it.”

As I said, I had to make games out of what I was doing to get out of that all-or-nothing mindset. I was like, “I have to do something every day. That’s better than doing nothing.” I adopted that as a practice. Doing something every day is better than nothing. If I focused on one thing every day, at least I did something.

I did that and I started to get a little bit better, and realized, “It doesn’t hurt as bad anymore.” At that point, I didn’t look into form or how to breathe. I wasn’t looking at any of the technical parts of it. I was just like, “Let’s try this.” I did that for 30 days straight and I accomplished that. That was a huge deal for me because I never had run before.

I can’t remember exactly. I started documenting it through video. I had my son come downstairs and my husband was like, “Can you film me for a few minutes running?” They did and I remember it being like eighteen minutes, then gradually, I could cut down the time. By the time I was done with that, I was right at 16 or 15 minutes. Whatever I ended up being, I could see improvement. When I saw that, it was like, “Let’s see what happens. Let’s see if we can keep going.”

When I had that treadmill, it was an el cheapo treadmill. I was probably 270 pounds at the time that I decided to do this. It was in the middle of my progress through weight loss. I heard a snap-crackle pop on that treadmill. I was like, “I can’t be without this thing.” At one of the points, I was like, “I need to look at getting something better if I’m going to keep doing this.” I had thrown that idea out there to my husband. He said, “We’ll do it. If that’s what you want to do, just do it.” He’s always agreeing with my crazy thoughts and ideas. I didn’t, and then he ended up going ahead and surprised me with the Peloton. I’m on an 86-week streak now. I’m pretty excited about that.

As you should be. That’s awesome.

That progressed me into saying, “Let’s keep going.” Once I started on Peloton, I started with the walks because I was learning how that all worked and doing the classes. You just do what they say. You just do what the trainers tell you to do. I started with Kirsten Ferguson because she did the walks, and then she did some walk-runs.

I’m walking at the same pace that I was doing that run challenge. Now, I went back and forth between the walks and toying with the idea of running again. I did a walk-run class for the first time where I was doing the intervals. It’s continued to progress there. I organically taught myself through listening to these trainers. Mainly, Kirsten, Becs, and Susie talk about form, standing up straight, and arms moving as a pendulum. I did exactly what they said and realized that there were different things that I was picking up from that, just listening to the same things over and over again.

I share a lot of this on Instagram and TikTok. I will have a lot of people comment and say, “Your form is phenomenal.” I’m like, “I just listened to what they tell me to do and do it.” I’m not perfect at it by any means but I focus on those little things. When Justin will say, “Check back in with your form. Shake it out and remember who you are.” It’s like, “Okay.” When you do those things, it’s like, “That works. I am getting this.”

I progressed into the running portion of it and continuously added more. I did it the way that you are supposed to do it from a beginner standpoint of how to run, very slow, and added on as I felt more comfortable and as I could feel my lung capacity getting better. Practicing breathing techniques, Becs will always say, “Smell the flowers and blow out the candles.” I was doing that. Whenever I would get that anxious feeling of my chest pumping and starting to burn, I would be like, “Slow yourself down inside. Do what they said. Breathe the way that they say.” It corrects itself.

Your body starts to be like, “This is what we’re doing. We’re doing this.” Your adrenaline fades away. You’re cruising along then. I never in a million years thought I could ever be a person who could truly learn this practice of running and go with it, then start to add mileage. I’ve done the longest run I’ve ever run. I run 7.23 miles. Never in a million years. I would be the first person who would laugh in your face and say, “You’re nuts if you think that I’m ever going to be running a single step in my life.” Now, here I’m doing this and it’s mind-blowing and awesome. I find myself telling people these things and going, “I’m training for a half marathon.” I can’t believe it. It’s cool.

When is the half marathon?

It’s on a Sunday. It’s either May 5th or May 6th. I’m awful with dates. I want to say May 5th. I need to tell you this too. On April 7th, I am going to Peloton Studios.

Have fun.

That’s a whole other story too. I know I’m probably taking a lot of time sharing this with you but it’s exciting. As I said to you, it’s not about the treadmill equipment itself. It’s about the trainers and the messages they put out there. I shared a video about that on my TikTok. That video was directed towards the Intention-Setting Sunday class that I took with Kirsten because that’s my jam. That’s my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world because she gives affirmations. She sets an intention and then affirmations for those classes. I don’t know if you ever seen those or not.

She did that and I created this video. I tagged Kirsten in it and Kirsten messaged me. She says, “You pick the class that you want to come to and you’ll be in it.” I manifested it out into the world sometime this year. I wrote it on my list of things that I wanted to accomplish. I’d like to take a class at Peloton. I had no intention of going to New York City. My husband and I were like, “We’re not taking a vacation this year. We’re going to do some stuff around the house. We’re not doing this.” I had no plans of going to New York City, then I got this email.

Jen Cotter also messaged me and she said, “We want you to come to New York.” I was like, “Okay.” How can you say no to that? When the universe puts it on your radar, you have to say yes. I was like, “Yes, we will be there.” I didn’t even talk to my husband. I’m like, “We got to make this work.” This has been such a life-changing thing for me in terms of generally feeling better about who I am as a human, as a woman, and as a person. I owe it to myself and to the people who have made me feel that way to be able to say that to them face-to-face.

That in itself is a huge thing for me to say, “I get to check that off my list this year.” The fact that it happened so wild and crazy because I just shared my feelings with 72,000 of my closest friends and they reciprocated that and said, “We feel the same way. We want you to know that you’re not alone in this.” I came to find out that they had shared my video at a Peloton staff meeting with all the trainers and all the instructors. I was getting inundated with messages. Now Matty Maggiacomo followed me on Instagram.

It’s one of those wild things where you’re like, “What?” To me, it goes to show even more of how I could sit here and say, “This is the real deal.” There’s a screen between us but there’s a relationship that’s being built. That’s why I say it has nothing to do with the treadmill itself. It has to do with what’s happening on that screen because it means something. I know you have a reason that you’re doing this. You’ve had a connection to them as well and to the concept of it. It’s an amazing thing for us to continue to keep saying, “This is a big deal if you let it be.” Anyway, I’m excited about it, in case you can’t tell.

You should be. It sounds awesome.

You’ll have a great time. It’s a lot of fun there and everybody’s great. People who are visiting the studio, whether it’s their first time or their 80th time, everybody is super welcoming. The staff is very welcoming. You’ll have a great time. You will enjoy it.

I’m excited. I can’t wait.

That’ll be a lot of fun. That’s great that it’s a month before your half marathon so that’ll work out well.

You’ll be in peak condition.

My only problem is I’m supposed to do a 10-mile long run in New York City and I live in the middle of Iowa. I’ve been to New York once, but it was 25 years ago. It’s like, “Should I attempt that?”

Google the West Side Highway. That’s a good place because it doesn’t cross as many roads. That’s nice and safe. That’s a good place to go.

Running that half marathon was more than just a physical achievement; it's a testament to resilience. Share on X

That’s good to know. Thank you.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us. Before we let you go, let everybody know your leaderboard name and where they can find you on all the socials.

My leaderboard name is @ThisIowaMom and you can find me also @ThisIowaMom on Instagram and TikTok.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

—

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 on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our Patreon where you can help out the show. We greatly appreciate all of that, and you get ad-free episodes and bonus content, which we’re going to record right now. Thanks for all that. Until next time, keep pedaling, and running, and rowing.

 

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