• At long last…a rower!
• Pelton stock slides again on reports of Tread+ fines.Was the rower timed to distract from the delayed release of the 10K report?
• Is Kim Kardashian buying Peloton?
• New class types have been added to the app.
• There’s a new way to book in-studio classes.
• There are new limited-time referral incentives.
• Yahoo has tips for how to use Peloton’s talkback screen reader.
• Peloton to participate in Communacopia & Technology Conference.
• The New York Times has thoughts on Peloton’s resale inventory.
• Dr. Jenn – Making peace with your lack of perfection.
• Jess Sims makes her ESPN Game Day debut.
• Ben Alldis shares the Sunday Times article about the opening of the London studios.Tomsguide.com reviews Emma Lovewell’s core challenge.
• Cody Rigsby shaved his mustache.
• Kendall Toole celebrates 3-years at Peloton.
• Daniel McKenna celebrates 1-year.
• Rad Lopez got a new puppy.
• Becs Gentry and her dog have matching outfits.
• Metpro: Portion control while at work.Ashton Kutcher’s marathon training gets featured by FemaleFirst.co.uk.
• Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian run together.
• There are new Taylor Swift yoga classes.
• There was a new apparel drop on Thursday.
• Crystal was featured on the Go Hard Chick podcast.
• Birthdays: Mila Lazar (9/7), Hanna Corbin (9/10).

 

All this plus our interview with Steve Chan.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Is Kim Kardashian Buying Peloton? Plus Our Interview With Steve Chan

We should let people know that you’re participating once again in Pedal The Cause.

I am, September 24th. Remember, Pedal The Cause. All of the money, whenever it gets donated, goes straight to research right here in St. Louis at Siteman Cancer Center.

If you’ve laughed at our jokes about how crappy St. Louis is, that’s all the more reason the money should stay here.

I’ve only gotten $20 that has been donated by Jersey Mike. Thank you, Jersey Mike. I feel like there is some room for some love out there from my fellow pedalers. If anybody out there is interested, I am team Powered By Hope and I would be very much appreciative of anything that you are donating. If I reach my commitment, I will be riding in the studio that weekend with my Powered By Hope Jersey on

You can participate in person. We will be in New York.

For your birthday. It’s Jersey Joe. Did I say Jersey Mike? Isn’t that a sub shop? I’m sorry, Jersey Joe. It’s Jersey Joe, not Jersey Mike.

The guy who owned the shop listens to the show saying, “That’s pretty cool. Get some free sandwiches.” You’re making it sound like we’re going to New York because it’s my birthday. You happened to get your classes on the weekend of my birthday.

Are we going to go to a musical for your birthday?

Yes.

That’s all we need to know. End of discussion. We’re going to New York for your birthday.

That’s how you assuage your guilt.

I will talk to the person that helped us get the tickets. I will tell them that you said that.

I’m very grateful that she helped us get the tickets, but it was to assuage your guilt because we’re going to Peloton classes for my birthday.

You said we should.

Because I’m very supportive. That’s why.

He’s turning this, you guys. Just so you know, whenever we talked about this originally, he was all in. I’m saying.

I’m all in but that’s because I’m very loving and caring. Everyone needs to know that.

That’s not how it came across.

If you’re in the New York area, we would love to see you. There’s the great NYC Pelo Meetup 9/23.

Gordon Walker and his lovely wife, Janet, the cookie lady, are putting this together. I know it’s last minute because they’ve been sick. They had COVID and they are trying to find a place for us, but we have a bunch of people that want to go already. If you are one of those people, I want you to go join this group. The great NYC Pelo Meetup 9/23.

The link to that group, if you’re having trouble finding it, will be in the newsletter. You can sign up for that at theclipout.com. It’s super easy. You get one email a week. It’s a very low nuisance factor.

That’s all this group is. It is just for this meet-up so you can join it. We’ll have fun and you can leave it. Save it for next time.

I guess we should end by saying if you want to hang out, but you don’t want to go to New York and you live in the Midwest, you don’t mind making a quick trip to the STL.

Come see us in October because we are going to be doing the big sail away Yacht Rock night. That is October 15th. we are going to have a party suite. We are going to have food. There will be drinks. We have plenty of room, so come on.

You get to see an evening of Yacht Rock classics from Firefall, Orleans, The Babies, Walter Egan, John Ford Coley, and Peter Beckett of Player. These shows are a lot of fun because Peter Beckett probably got two songs you care about. He’s going to play two songs. He’s going to get the F off stage, then they’re going to bring out the next guy with two songs.

My favorite part is they share a band. You don’t spend 30 minutes watching them break down the set and put a new set-up. I’m not saying there are no breaks for intermission. You got to buy your drinks.

I got to sell beer.

We’ll have drinks in the suites. You don’t have to leave, but we still need to sell the beer for Tom’s place. Anyway, it’ll be tons of fun and we’d love to see you.

You can find that in The Clip Out group or it will be in the newsletter if you sign up for that. There’s all that. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

First of all, we have a visit from Dr. Jenn. She is talking about making peace with your lack of perfection. While we’re on the subject of Dr. Jenn, I wanted to bring this up while we were talking about this because we are doing a special Dr. Jenn episode. It’s going to be Dr. Jenn After Dark. We need questions. It’s anything sex and relationships. No topic is off the table. She will choose her final questions. Right now we only have three. I would love to get some more questions from you guys. If you want to post them on The Clip Out group, you’re more than welcome to.

We get that you might not want to post a question of that nature where everyone can see it.

I have been sent some anonymous questions that will remain anonymous.

You are bound by HIPAA as a podcast creator.

I would never tell people’s things, but you can send anything confidential. You can send it to my email, ClipOutCrystal@gmail.com. Put Dr. Jenn in the subject because I get a lot of emails. I want to be able to help you so please, put that in the subject line. Other than that, it’s super simple. I’ll take care of the rest and no one will know.

If you’re that concerned, you can always go set up a dummy email account. We’ll never know. What else do you have in store for people?

That was just one thing. We have a visit from Angelo and we are talking about portion control while you work. We also have a bunch of updates going on with the instructors like we do every week. We have some instructors in the news. There’s some fun new stuff on the Peloton app and we get into some pretty interesting discussions coming up.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That would be very helpful. We’re at 499. We’re one shy of 500.

We need 500 reviews. You can put one word like awesome. That would work. You don’t have to write a book, but it would be nice to have a nice even number. Thank you for all the reviews you have left.

You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. We also have a Patreon where you can get all sorts of bonus content. Sometimes these episodes, when they’re ready a little early, you get them a little early. People will be getting them on Thursday afternoon. That’s always fun and there are no ads in them. You can find that at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. Finally, don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch these now in color. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

At long last, a rower. End of segment. We’re done. Moving on.

It’s so funny because we’ve been waiting and waiting, and then Peloton was like, “The countdown begins.” The countdown is still going from four years ago when we started hearing about this.

The countdown continues. Peloton should change its name to Casey Kasem. That’s how long this countdown had been going on.

You can sign up to be the first to know. You were already the first to know because you listened to The Clip Out four years ago. There you go. In all seriousness, we gave you all the details of what to expect from this rower. Now, the sign-up has arrived. I know that when it came to the tread and the Tread+ in particular when we got this little email, it was a long time before we actually got to order. I believe we got it in November, and then it was in January before we even got to order, and then it was an additional eleven months before we got our actual tread.

I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen this time. I think we’re going to be seeing the actual roll outcome in a few weeks. We’re very close to it because they’re finalizing the testing that they have been doing. That is my guess. We’ve got a number of weeks and you will be seeing it. We don’t know how much the price is going to be, but we know Barry said it’s going to be expensive. My guess is $3000-plus, which is still very steep considering some of these things sell for under $1,000.

It makes you wonder what it does that justifies it being that much money. I guess if they’re back to being an aspirational luxury brand, they’re not looking to sell a million. I think it’s the smart move because there’s a finite number of people that want these rowers. If you try to price it as a mass appeal item, it’s not a mass appeal item. You’re going to end up selling a bunch of cheap rowers to people who would have paid more for them. I fight this battle all the time with pricing concert tickets.

I bet you do. It’s a constant up and down like where should we land? Some of it is like finessing. I know people get upset about that. I think that you have to remember that all of these companies are still for profit. You have to do what the economy will bear. You have to repeat supply and demand. These are the basic principles of capitalism. Even if you don’t agree with them, that’s why they do it.

It’s the reality of the situation. I think it’s smart to go a little high. You can always come down, run a sale or do something, but that would be a mistake to come in and try and price it like $1,200. You would probably sell maybe 5% more than you would have and left a lot of money on the table.

I want to touch on the fact that when I posted this the other morning, it said, “Peloton rower, the countdown begins.” It shows a picture of the bike, but I want to be very clear that’s because I saw it the instant it went up. I happened to see it the instant it went up. The link wasn’t even live yet to sign up. I know people think you just flip a switch and websites go live, but that’s not how it works. It has to go through this major RSS feed building. It’s complex and it takes time.

For everyone that was like, “Oh my God, it’s wrong. Oh my God, Peloton failed.” No, they didn’t. You would not have known if I had not posted. It was just timing. That’s all it was. If you would have looked ten minutes later, it was fine. That’s how all websites are. That’s not a Peloton fail. That’s how it works. I wanted to explain that because a lot of people were upset, and they were saying that Peloton messed up again. That’s not what happened.

If you would like to talk about Peloton messing up, we’re here for you. Their stocks slipped again linking to the delay of their annual 10K report, and the fact that word came out that they will be getting fined because of the Tread+.

Did you get to read this article? I didn’t. I’m curious how much the fines are.

I don’t know that they said. I scanned it but I didn’t see a dollar figure jump out at me. I don’t know.

We just know it’s not going to be good. Here we go. The move, which is in broader part, turnarounds, forecast cost post-production delivery cost by around 50% when fully implemented, but form part of the $415 million in charges the group booked over the final three months of the year. Also, the costs associated with the changes that they made. That’s also part of it.

The refunding of all those treads?

No. I mean the people they let go of and the different changes they made to logistics. Those cost money too. You don’t just get the savings. You also have to put the money out there that you cost to do that. It’s interesting to me that they don’t say what the fines are in this article. I’m curious about that. It just says that they may face fines. I think the bigger deal was how much it cost for pulling out logistics. I know that was an expensive thing. I think long term for the health of the company, that was the right call, particularly if they’re moving over to Amazon. I think that was the right thing to do.

I also feel like they’re trying to book a bunch of losses right now.

Once you have a loss, you might as well take it all in one year, for sure.

It’s like when you go to get a vaccine, you’re like, “You’re here for COVID? Do you want shingles? How about a flu shot?” “Absolutely.”

I don’t suppose that was an actual thing that happened to you, Tom.

No, not at all.

It was such a specific example.

David Miller, author of the book Sweating Together had an interesting post on the gram. He had an interesting post about Kim Kardashian, who we will get to later. She took place in the Peloton class and people lost their minds because how dare someone they do not like also use Peloton. That’s offensive to their sensibilities. Kim Kardashian announced that she’s launching a private equity firm, which led David Miller to ask, was she thinking about buying Peloton?

I think it’s a fair question.

 

I don’t think it’s crazy, especially with the stock prices.

What he said was Peloton taking on celebrity investors. He did not say that she is buying it. You go down that road very quickly. It’s a slippery slope from one thought to the other.

She’s got the bank. She’s got the following. I think it’s a fair question. I know people love to hate Kim Kardashian.

I truly don’t get the Kardashian hate. Just to be clear, I also don’t love them. I never watch the show. I just don’t understand the vitriol against her. People are really angry. We’ll talk about her later. We’ll get into that. It’s interesting. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. This one makes more sense to me than some of the others that have been brought up as far as purchasing.

I agree. She’s pretty savvy as much as people don’t want to admit it or certain people don’t want to admit it. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that she is thinking like that.

We will see what comes out.

There is a new wrinkle when it comes to booking your in-studio classes.

I don’t even know how I feel about this, but someone posted this in The Clip Out group. I’ve seen lots of other people posting it too. Now when you go to book classes that are launching every Monday around noon Eastern because that has it always been, you have to get in line to buy your tickets.

That’s a very common thing on ticketing platforms.

I know but now you have to get in line to buy. If you were already there, then how are you not in line when you’re there? I don’t understand.

They’re filing you into a separate thing so it doesn’t overwhelm their server.

This is keeping their traffic under control.

This is a very simplified version. We’re talking ticketing. This is my world. Here’s what’s going on. Everybody comes into this website and then they start pulling you out and putting you in line over this other thing. If too many people come into the website and it crashes the website, it doesn’t matter. You’ve already got 300 people over here in line. If this site crashes, you weren’t going to be first in line anyway because they already pulled out people and started lining them up.

I hit refresh over and over. How am I not in line the second I get there?

It’s because everyone else is hitting refresh over and over. You’re not special to the Peloton website. This grabs people and starts lining them up. If everybody goes into the website, you’re going to be in line one way or the other.

What’s hard about this for me is that when you’re going to buy concert tickets, I don’t usually buy concert tickets that I have to be first in line for.

First off, let’s be fair. You haven’t bought a concert ticket since you met me because if we need concert tickets, I just call somebody and say, “I need some concert tickets,” then we get concert tickets.

There was the one time that your brother-in-law bought the Elton John tickets.

The one time he did the Amex presale and he thought he had bad seats. I said, “You’re insane. Buy those tickets.” We paid $120 and we were 30 feet from the stage.

My point is that if we’re doing this, they only bring these online in the middle of the day. How are you supposed to work and buy seats for a class months from now?

That’s not their problem. What time are they going to pick that’s going to work for everybody?

I wish that they would do it in waves. Does that make sense?

The complaints then are going to be, I could never know because it’s always moving around. It’s a moving target. I don’t know. I can’t structure around it. It’s it was noon this time and next week it’s at 10:00 and then it’s 3:00.

I’m triggering your work madness. I can tell. You’re getting mad because this is what people say to you all day long.

Having that support, being able to support each other definitely helped. Click To Tweet

It’s going to be like this. Here’s the upside. Compared to ticketing, there’s no secondary market for this. There’s nobody taking these bikes, and then flipping them and paying $40, and then they go, “Do you want to get into the Jenn Sherman 9:30 class? It’s $700.” I think Peloton would shut that down in a heartbeat or they would take over like, “You want the bike right next to Jenn Sherman? That’s $700.” This is a way to maintain order and stop the site from crashing and maintain some level of fairness that makes it first come first serve. I think the big problem is people don’t believe that they’re really in line.

I wouldn’t believe it. When it says you’re estimated wait time is eight minutes, now I can’t leave my computer for eight minutes. What if I have to pee? This is very important.

You can probably do it on your phone.

I can’t because you can’t trust a phone when you are booking tickets at the studio.

It’s a laptop. Take it with you.

I’m not taking the computer into the bathroom. I’m not doing that.

You will if you want your Peloton tickets, then you know if it goes on sale at noon that you pee at 11:50.

That I will do.

I think this is a net positive.

I’m actually not that upset about it. I’m just playing bad cop.

There is a new incentive referral program.

It’s not lasting long. It’s only through Monday, but you can earn double the rewards. If you sell a bike or you convince your friend to buy a bike, you get $200 off your apparel purchase, and they get $200 off accessories instead of $100 for each respectively.

That’s nice. This feels like another one of their A/B tests. This isn’t amazing but it’s something. I think they’re like, “Let’s see if this gets the needle to move and know if it works.” Yahoo has an article about how to use the talk-back screen on your Peloton. I would think, I’m just spitballing, you talk back at it.

It talks back to you. That’s the idea. It doesn’t have sass when it talks that I know of. I’ve actually never used it. I like that there is a very specific how-to article out there and it’s by a reputable company. Sometimes I see these things and I’m like, “Did AI write this?” What is happening? This explains how to use the reader. It explains what it is. For people who maybe have site issues or they can’t choose the class by site, they will be able to use the feature to walk through the different classes and choose via voice and hearing instead. That’s a great accessibility feature and it has been on the bike for a while, but now it has been added to the tread. That’s awesome.

It makes me wonder, is this website accessible? If not, then this article is pointless.

I think it’s more about the reader. If a person who has site issues is looking at it or reading it on an iPad, let’s say, and the iPad has the talk-back feature, then they can read the article because it’s already built in.

With it being in Yahoo, my guess is that it is.

We’re not calling out Yahoo.

I was just wondering because I don’t have those issues. I don’t have a computer that is set up to do that so I can’t tell. I was curious, is this all for nothing?

I don’t think so.

Peloton will be participating in the Goldman Sachs Communacupia & Technology conference.

That’s a name. It’s going to be Monday, September 12th. Maybe we should stop by. We’ll be in New York on Monday. We’ll pop in. You can watch it over at Investor.one.peloton.com. They’re going to be taking place at this conference, which is interesting because as John Mills brought up in his group, this is something that typically the CFO does. It’s interesting that Barry is doing it because he brought in the new CFO, but he is still going and he used to be a CFO. I think he’s very comfortable in that role. That’s his world so he’s going to keep on living in it. I get that though. You’re the big boss. You get to make decisions like that. You should still do the things you love. If that’s what he loves, by all means.

It’s one of the perks. The New York Times had an article about Peloton and its attempts to sell its refurbished inventory.

It’s also talking about the fact that there are so many bikes out there in the market. The one quote that stood out to me was that a spokesperson for eBay said that Peloton bikes for sale are up 80% from 2019. That’s a big number. Part of it is there are more bikes out there. There are also a lot of people that bought them during COVID that they don’t want them. That was never going to be their thing.

 

They bought them and they have some buyer’s remorse. It was a stop-gap because maybe they preferred gyms. I also think that they suppressed the resale market temporarily by dropping their pricing. Now that the pricing has increased, people were like, “I pay $2,200 for a bike and now you’re selling it for $1,200. I got to dump mine for $700. I don’t want to do that.” Now that they’ve gone back up. I’m sure you see people selling bikes on posts. The number has gone up considerably.

According to this article, it’s still down. They’re saying it’s down. They’re saying that people are only getting $700 for their bikes across the board. There were some exceptions to that in their article.

The posts I see are at least asking for significantly more. It seems to be that $1,200 to $1,500 range. I know a friend of ours bought a Peloton right before they jumped the price back up for $950. He’d been trying to find one for a long time. If he would have found one for $700, he would have bought it in a heartbeat.

It might depend on the market. I feel like in St. Louis, there’s never been the glut of bikes that is available in other markets. It’s not ingrained in the community here in the way it is like on the East Coast. There are all kinds of cities. It’s across the country, but I’m saying it happens more densely in cities that have had access to it for longer. Here in the Midwest, we have had access to it.

We are late adopters. We still wear members-only jackets. There’s a store at the mall that sells nothing but Swatch guards. That’s what we’re up against. We still have a closet full of IOU sweaters.

I do think that it’s different in different areas, but we can only compare it with what we see on our pricing. It’s interesting and there are a lot of people that are not happy about that. It is what it is. Nobody ever guaranteed you were going to get full price for your bike forever.

It’s not how that works.

You don’t expect that when you sell your car. Right now you can do that, but you couldn’t do that ten years ago.

In a year and a half, it won’t be that way.

You won’t be able to do that anymore.

There has been a fun addition to the Peloton app.

Before, you could do a Just Workout, This came out a couple of months ago, where you could do outdoor running and outdoor cycling. They had three different ways that you could use it before. They have added a ton. Now you can click on anything, cycling, walking, running, yoga, strength, cardio, and meditation. What does this mean? This means that you can get a blue dot for other things besides what’s on the Peloton app. It allows you to let’s say workout on Tonal and click that you did Just Workout, and have it recorded at the same time. You still get your blue dot over on Peloton. If a blue dot is important to you to see in one place all the workouts that you did, this will be very important to you.

Do you think this is a harbinger of things to come? I feel like this is them trying to make the app more like you don’t need the other apps. Do you think they will add more functionality?

I do. I think somebody brought up like, “This is great but I want swimming.” There’s always going to be a “This is great, but.” WHOOP does this. At the end of the day, it’s a little different when it comes to an activity tracker like WHOOP because you want to be able to classify your different workouts and see the different strains between different workouts. Since Peloton has a heart rate monitor, you can track your heart rate monitor and be able to see your activity among these different classifications so that’s helpful.

You’re not getting your heart rate variability, sleep, and all that. Will all those things come too? If so, they’re definitely going to be up against Apple Watch and WHOOP directly. Is that somewhere down the pipeline? I don’t know. I could see it happening for sure. Just it’s like any app, their whole existence is to keep you on the app as long as possible.

One way to look at it is very cold and calculating. They’re doing this to be able to say like how those statistics were saying, “Our members worked out 80% this month and everybody else only worked out 20%.” This is only going to up that. If you’re a person who takes offense at that, that’s what they’re doing. That’s why they’re doing it. I guess you have an issue with it. I don’t know.

That’s their whole goal. It’s everybody’s goal. It’s the metric. How long did you keep them in the app? Now you can start justifying more things like advertisements. This is where it’s going, guys. It’s all marketing. I’m hoping if you pay enough, you don’t have any of that crap on there. I want it pure. I want to have my class and have all my stats. I don’t want to have ads. I’ll pay above it.

I think if they ever went that route, they would do that. That’s the model you’re seeing. Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu are going to it. They’re all going to this model of add–free costs for a little extra.

I’m good with it.

—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and Sports Psychology consultant. She was also a five–year national team member in rhythmic gymnastics and a sports psychologist for USA gymnastics. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

It’s not a Sports Psychology question. Ever Diaz has a question. She wants to know how she can be better at taking everything one day at a time and being graceful with herself and knowing that not every day will be perfect.

This is actually interesting. This has been a theme with a lot of my clients. I can’t tell you how many times in the last few weeks I have recommended the serenity prayer. I am a big believer and it’s not a religious prayer. It’s one that is used in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

It was just making easier decisions with respect to what you were eating and lining it up with the calories you were burning with exercising. Click To Tweet

I have that prayer by my bed like it’s carved in a rock. I have it here in my office in a little frame. I’ve given it to my kid. I have that everywhere because that’s something that I have struggled with myself. To me, that philosophy is one of the most relieving concepts, at least for me, because I am someone like a lot of us type A people. I know I’m speaking to at least one or maybe two.

It’s that feeling of I need to control everything. I need to handle everything. I need to master everything. I need to make sure that I am handling everything. That can lead to a lot of anxiety and stress. I think that evaluating it on constant day-to-day, hour by hour, minute by minute level of is this something I can control? Is this something that’s putting time and energy into, whether it be by researching, taking action, or obsessing? Will there be a benefit to that? Is there an outcome where that energy expanded can help me?

If you are not able to nip this in the bud, it’s time to see a therapist. It’s time to work with someone to figure out what’s going on that you have such a need to control all of these things. What is it about your history? What is it about the family that you grew up in? Were you in a situation where things were chaotic? Were you in a situation in a home with a parent with a substance abuse issue? Were you in a situation where you couldn’t count on what was going to happen next?

It was unpredictable, whether you didn’t know if you would have food on the table or if you didn’t know if your parent would be flying off into a rage. That kind of unpredictability and chaos tends to create more of a need to control and handle things on your own, and to not trust also other people to handle things for you. You have to dig deeper and take a look at that.

I feel like I can be like that, but I also feel like of the two of us, I’m better at knowing like, “I got no control over that.”

Except for some things. He is good about it until he is not, and when he is not, you can’t talk him out of it. Many fewer issues get him to that point than myself. It can be any day at any given moment, there will be something I feel that way about every day.

Also, being a mom is very different from being a dad. Typically there’s a lot that falls on your plate that is different from what falls on Tom’s plate. That requires a lot more management.

She said that very accurately.

I spent a few years as a mom.

You did. You put your time in, for sure.

I will say that though that it does fall back into traditional divvying up, even when we try not to have it do that. Anyway, there’s the window you wouldn’t want to look through.

I’m treading very carefully.

That’s more like a Tread+ with what you’re doing. Thank you so much for all that. Until next time, where can people find you?

I’m on all social media @DrJennMann, or you can find me on InStyle magazine online. Hump Day With Dr. Jenn is my weekly column with sex and relationship advice.

Thank you.

—

Jess Sims made her debut on ESPN’s college game day. Her outfit went viral.

Why is this such a big deal?

What is she wearing?

They’re saying that it’s like the NBA draft class suit from 2003. Jess Sims, making the 2003 NBA draft class fit look cool again. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.

She’s wearing some sort of baggy suit like she’s in the Talking Heads Tribute band.

She looks amazing.

Maybe if we understood sports, this would tickle us to no end.

She looked great. I’m very happy for her that her day went so well on her first game day out there. People had nothing but glowing reviews for her. That’s awesome.

 

Speaking of Jess Sims.

She’s having a big month. It was announced that Jess Sims has been elevated to a Jordan brand athlete. Congrats. She looks amazing and we’re happy for her. It is very cool.

Ben Alldis posted about Peloton getting a nice write-up in The Sunday Times, which is the big paper in London. They’re so big that they don’t even have to put the name of the city on them. It’s just The Times.

I think he was saying, “Look, my fiance is in the paper.” That’s okay.

If you’re in the paper, I would post that.

I know you have. Congrats to Leanne and the whole Peloton studio in London. If you want to see the whole article online, you can. If you get our newsletter, you will have a link right to it. You’ll be able to read the whole thing because they say that the hottest stars in town are at the Peloton London studio.

It’s probably a bunch of English famous people that we don’t know. TomsGuide.com had a review about Emma Lovewell’s core challenge.

They call it the Peloton core challenge, but let’s be honest. It’s Crush Your Core and it’s Emma. It always has been. They had great results. They feel like it could transform their core. There’s no doubt. If you do this for the four weeks the way you’re supposed to, you will transform your core. It’s a great workout. Both of them, 1 and 2. Congrats to Emma for getting the coverage.

Cody has shaved his mustache.

His post made me laugh. I was not a fan of the tash. When Matty Maggiacomo has the tash, it works. When Cody has the tash, it does not work. I know they’re friends. They probably disagree about that. They probably feel like they can both pull it off. Cody posted and said, “Can you tash hating bitches quiet down now?” It made me laugh.

Kendall Toole is celebrating her third year with Peloton.

We had to post the Kindle’s knockouts from Instagram. They posted about it. We are sharing it on the screen. Thank you for making it known that it is Saturday, 9/10. That is the three-year anniversary. You get to ride with her. Everybody can swarm together. I can’t believe it has been three years. I know that. It went so fast.

Speaking of going fast, Daniel McKenna is also celebrating his anniversary. He has been with Peloton for one whole year.

It’s incredible. It feels like yesterday that they got here and here he is.

It was 365 yesterdays.

Congrats to everyone.

Rad Lopez got a puppy.

This dog is so cute. He calls it Mav. I don’t know if that’s short for mag Maverick. I need to hold this puppy. Look at those eyes. It’s so pretty.

The rest of the show will be Crystal squealing while watching a dog video. Thank you for tuning in. There’s no interview. Just Crystal giggling at a puppy.

This is why nobody wants to go to the zoo with me. It’s like this the entire trip

It’s been ten years since our trips to the zoo.

He never lets me go into the pet store.

We would come out with so many pets.

No, I’m good. I don’t buy them. I just love them so much.

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I guess we might as well power through all the dog stuff.

This is cute. Becs’ husband, Austin, posted a picture of Becs while she was taking their dog for a walk. He said in the caption, “I have a feeling we are only getting started on these matching outfits,” because the dog is wearing a yellow raincoat and so is Becs with a yellow umbrella in the rain. Since she is going to be having her baby in two months, I think he foresees that all three of them are going to match very soon.

Why do I feel like there are going to be matching outfits for you and Twix soon?

That would be so cute.

I should have deleted that story as soon as I saw it.

—

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

Thank you for having me back.

We appreciate you being here. Julie Milazzo is looking for some help with portion control, particularly during work hours. She says she can literally eat all day long and she knows it’s because she’s seeking to fill the void that is created by her soul-sucking government desk job.

We have an issue with portion control at our desk. I have to go way back to some of my research and come up with specific numbers. Crystal and the audience know that I’m a big numbers guy. I like specifics, but in this case, I’m going to have to give you the general. They have done trials and studies. They have researched this extensively. What accounts for a greater impact, portion control or food substitution? The answer might surprise you. It’s food substitutions. That means when we ask someone to eat basically whatever foods they want, and just exercise portion control, the reduction is less than if we say, “Eat as much as you want, but we want you to eat from this higher food volume, lower calorie foods.” The reduction is greater in those scenarios.

It was approximately, don’t quote me on this. Approximately, a third was attributed to portion control and two-thirds were attributed to food substitutions. The take-home message isn’t food substitutions. Instead, the take-home message is to do both. Exercise portion control and where possible, use food substitutions. What I’m going to recommend to you, Julie, may seem a little surprising, but I’m going to recommend focusing on having low-calorie, healthy options that you don’t feel you have to significantly limit within reason throughout the day.

Those are going to be a lot of simple foods. Something that we work with our clients on is food lists of basically snackable that is going to essentially be that habit food. I do this at night. At the end of my day, I like to sit at my computer and I like to have something to munch on. It has nothing to do with hunger. I have found the things that work for me that are low calorie, clean and healthy. I’m not going to get into what they are because you’re going to say, “That’s gross. That’s disgusting.” I have found that everyone likes something different. That’s fine.

Google low-calorie foods. For starters, almost any vegetable is going to be on that list and most fruits are going to be on that list. A common one that a lot of people agree on is berries. It’s one of the lowest, if not the lowest glycemic fruit you can eat. It’s extremely low calories. Who doesn’t like berries, except Tom?

I was proud of it.

I have a client right now. I’m not saying this is your thing, and he’s going to listen to this also. He loves cauliflower, which is not my thing, but he loves it. He actually puts Truvia on it.

It’s nice to see though that you also work on helping sociopaths. That’s good.

I can’t wait until he listens to this episode.

Build a stronger and better breed of sociopaths to take us all out. Sounds great.

That is fascinating. I would never think to put something sweet on vegetables.

Some of our favorite nighttime snacks like sliced apples with baked low-fat mozzarella cheese and a little garlic for savory, some people like doing that similar thing, but instead they put a little Truvia to make it sweet. You can do rollups, where everyone brings a dish and it’s a common dish that people make. You’ll have turkey or ham or something like that sliced with some sour cream in the middle, pepper, olive, toothpick, and do it with cottage cheese instead.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s gross. You won’t be able to taste the difference when you have it in that combination. Doing a bowl of berries and Greek yogurts, putting a little bit of a sweetener in it like the all-natural or more natural sweeteners or something along the lines of a Truvia, a cup of Greek yogurt, a cup of berries, put it in the blender, and chill it in the freezer.

The thing is that the interweb has a bazillion great ideas when it comes to this. The problem is when we have foods that are not ideal for us in the first place, and they’re there sitting all day. If it’s in front of you, you’re going to grab it, remove it from in front of you. If you’re going to keep something in front of you where you’re not going to limit the portion, have it be a high food volume, a low-calorie option that’s not going to negatively impact you.

Almost always, that aligns with healthier options. Generally speaking, it’s the processed foods, fast foods, junk foods, snacks, and things that come out of a box, that have a wrapper that we tend to snack on while sitting around at our desk all day. Those are the stuff that we’ll grab. Those are almost always the items that are not good for our health and vitality and are also not good for our waistline.

Think of foods the way grandma and grandpa ate them. You’re usually going to be safer, and I think that you’ll do well. Also, advance preparation is going to be 90% of it. I did one particular seminar where we would interview groups of people. We would actually put them in groups in the room during the seminar. We would group them by diet. We’re like, “Who likes low-carb dieting? Who likes Weight Watcher’s calorie counting strategy? Who likes to eat high fruits and vegetables?”

 

We put them in 3 or 4 groups. Now I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. This group here isn’t following any diet. They only have one rule.” I then pull out the ice chest. It was one of the soft ones, tote-like. This group here only have one rule. They can follow any diet they want, but they can only eat what’s in this bag, and they have to have it packed the night before. Guess which group is going to lose the most weight? That one.

I promise you so, 100%t of the time, 90% of your outcomes are going to come down to factors. In fact, when we would evaluate ones, even up successful groups, the ones that are most successful and most consistent predictors, those that were preparing at least some of their daily food in advance, without even knowing what the foods were turned out that was highly predictive of sustained weight loss, maintenance of lost weight or success on a weight loss plan. Similarly, those even who had good overall eating habits, but did not display characteristics of consistency. In other words, I eat healthily but I eat randomly.

It wasn’t correlated to rapid weight gain in the near future, but that’s strongly correlated to long-term weight gain. Those who were more consistent that’s correlated to long-term weight homeostasis. A lot of people think of the natural arc because we always think, “I’m this weight if I follow this plan. That didn’t work for me because I only maintained my weight.” That may be the case. Of course, we want something that’s making progress for us, but we sometimes fail to remember that they have done studies that have compared control groups against groups participating in certain activities.

I’ll give you a classic example. They had a particular exercise group. I won’t get into the specifics of what exercise is that. That’s not important for the point here, but they wanted to see how it would affect specifically women participating in this particular form of exercise compared to the control group. This was a study with hundreds of women. What they found was after eighteen months, the group that had participated in this activity stayed almost exactly the same weight. They counted it as a success. Everyone goes, “What? How is that a success? They didn’t lose anything.” Here’s the fine print. The controlled group gained 5 pounds.

It didn’t sound like they have very much control to me. They misrepresented themselves.

That’s because the natural human arc, and almost all societies follow this arc, is gradual weight gain is the standard up to approximately about age 58 to 60. This is debatable, then the actual standard is declining body weight.

I got a few more years and I can stop.

I knew you were going to say that.

We completely went off on tangents on this one. We totally went sideways. Action items for Julie, what I would encourage you to do is to pick some low-calorie healthy snacks. Put them in a big bag, and bring them with you to work instead. and work on portion control. Make it what I call the car keys scenario. You can have any cheap meal you want. As long as you have to grab the car keys, put on your coat, get in your car, drive down to the 7-Eleven and get it. If you only have to walk across the living room and open your fridge to get it, you can have it. That’s the problem.

We have to keep it out of the house. Apply the same principle to work. Don’t keep it at your desk. Don’t keep it right next to you. Put it in the break room, put it in the fridge. Make it that way so it’s an event that you have to walk and get. Have a few snacks packed in advance. I promise you, you’re going to see improvement in that area. You’re going to do well.

That is great because I never could keep anything at my desk. It doesn’t matter what it was, I would eat all of it. I could not keep anything there.

I don’t normally leave to buy my lunch even before I started doing MetPro and stuff, but I did one day and it was a big giant bag of pretzels, family size. It was $1.80. This is how long ago it was. The little bag of pretzels for singles was $1.60. I was like, “That’s dumb. I’ll get the big bag and I could have it over for next week.” No, I ate them all that day. I was like, “Never again.”

One last quick tangent. Tom triggered me again.

I have that effect on people.

That is in the corner of the world where we live. That is the scenario and the culture here. We get offered these value choices. That’s a disaster. You can pay $35 and have this healthy chicken salad or you can have this gigantic cheeseburger that’s ready to go right now for a nickel. That’s the scenario. Maybe that’s a little exaggeration, but essentially that’s what happens.

I had this conversation regarding Super Bowl eating and why snacking can hurt you so much more than simply meals. Keep this fundamentally when we’re talking workplace and snacks throughout the day. If I say eat whatever you want but limit it to a specific meal, you can only fit so much into your tummy in one sitting.

Over the course of a marathon football-watching session with bags of chips in front of you, over the course of three and a half hours, you can polish off a lot of snacks. Trust me, if you look at the back of a bag of pretzels, chips or Ruffles, and you do the math, you would be shocked.

Don’t do the math.

I love junk food, but not enough to watch football. If people would like fitness, nutrition, and tangents tailor-made for them, where can they find you?

—

This isn’t exactly breaking news at this point, but for people keeping track or wanting to collect them all and trade them with your friends, FemaleFirst.co.uk has an article about Ashton Kutcher getting marathon ready.

I know we already covered this. The only reason I included it was because it’s being covered in the UK as well. It’s getting Peloton a lot of press. That is the whole goal. They could use it. You could get Peloton press and raise money for Ashton’s charity called Thorn. All I could think of was Ashton’s Thorn, and it felt like there needed to be words in between for that to make sense. That’s all.

—

Kim Kardashian and Ashton Kutcher took part in a Robin Arzon tread class. People were very upset about this.

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First of all, when Peloton came out with their video, was no one watching the video? She was right there. It was in the video the very first day they announced this. I don’t understand why this is so shocking to everyone. Guess what, everybody? Natalie Portman and several other stars will also be showing up. They’re going to have a new star every week. That’s the idea. I don’t know why that’s shocking to people. For Kim, specifically, when people started posting that she was going to be in this class, people got very upset. People are never rude to Robin on Instagram. People were rude to Robin on Instagram. They were like, “Peloton has lost their way. How is this happening?”

The person with the seventh most followers on Instagram is talking about the product. What are they thinking?

I don’t get why it’s so upsetting to people. What I was saying earlier in the show is I don’t understand what people hate about her so much. Anybody that gets that popular, you cannot become the seventh most popular Instagram star without pissing people off. You have to be polarizing. I’m not saying it’s my brand. I’m not saying I like who she is, but I don’t know her. I also don’t have anything against her. She’s just a person. I don’t get it.

I’ve never watched an episode of the Kardashians either. They probably would count that as a win because I”m not their demo. You are more than I am.

They’re very stylized like, “I’m not a fan of the makeup she wears.” It launched this whole style that other people emulate and they want their makeup to look like that. I don’t feel like it’s very genuine. I don’t feel like people look like themselves in that type of makeup so it’s not my thing.

It’s a generational thing. There has been a shift in the same way that in the ‘60s, these girls in their short skirts and boys in their long hair. It’s not my thing. It’s not supposed to be my thing and that’s fine. All I know is that she has 278 million Instagram followers in a country of 400 million people. That’s not nothing. When people are like, “Would they buy a Peloton?” If you put 278 million people in a room, I promise you, some of those people would buy a Peloton. When you have a pool of people that large, then there are definitely people that you can be selling to out of there.

I guess people have an issue with her persona and the way she has presented herself. I don’t want to call out this person because it wasn’t in our group, so I don’t have their permission. They were very close-minded. They had posted something and they got ripped up about their thoughts. They then were like, “I’m going to go to this class. I’m going to watch this class. I’m going to have an open mind about it.”

They ended up coming away from the class, still feeling the exact same way. Nothing changed. They felt like Kim Kardashian is using the opportunity to change her persona to people. She’s trying to look a different way to people. The person who posted this doesn’t feel like they should be able to use the Peloton platform for that. It should be about Ashton’s charity. That should be where the focus is, not on Kim Kardashian.

Isn’t Peloton about making positive changes in your life?

What it boils down to is everybody has an opinion about what Peloton should be. It’s been so much to all of us. Everybody feels like if it doesn’t match with what they think Peloton should be, then it’s not right. Back in the day, when the company was small, people would write John Foley and tear him a new butt hole until they got what they wanted. Those days are over. There is no more of that.

He’s the wrong guy to write now.

Barry would just throw it away. He’d be like, “That’s nice. It’s working or it’s not.” That’s the only thing they care about. Is it working or not? We’ve moved past the day where it is obvious that Peloton is going to grow and it’s going to be amazing and it’s going to be awesome. Now we’ve moved on to Peloton’s needs to survive. For me, I’ve had to get into a new head space about tough choices are now need to be made. It’s like if you lost your job tomorrow, then I wouldn’t be able to have things that I now have. I couldn’t do that. We would have to have a discussion about what are we going to cut out of our life.

To be clear, it’s not because I support us but because we’re a two–income household and one of the incomes went away.

If I lost my job, then we’d have the same conversation. It’s a two-way street. My point is that it stops being about, “Tom, go buy your comic books. That’s fine,” or I’m going to get my hair done every four weeks and spend a lot of money on it. That’s fine because we have money. We’re both independent and we can do those things. If we don’t, we got to start making some hard choices. The kids come first. That becomes our focus. I feel like people have not wrapped their heads around that that is the new focus. It’s keeping the company afloat or they have wrapped their heads around it and they don’t agree on what is going to work in keeping the company afloat.

I think that anything that brings new eyes and a lot of new eyes to the company can’t be a bad thing. People don’t do this with other products like, “Kim Kardashian drinks Coca-Cola. How dare Coca-Cola.” Who cares?

Coca-Cola isn’t doing a 30-minute commercial with her drinking their Coca-Cola.

They would. Did they do one with her? I think they did. It went bad too. I think she was the one they tried to piggyback on the Black Lives Matter movement. Maybe it was one of the other Kardashians because I don’t watch it. They’re all the same person to me. Anyway, my larger point is that you don’t apply this litmus test to other products. Who cares? Nothing about your enjoyment of your bike, tread, guide or soon-to-be rower is affected by whether or not she’s a part of one small aspect of their marketing.

Unless she buys them.

You then can be upset. As long as you still got Cody and Robin.

You still have the people you love. As Barry said, “The instructors are the crown jewel of Peloton.” That’s what’s creating the content. That’s what’s driving the growth.

That’s the real product ultimately.

They’re probably going to keep doing things like this. It’s going to keep going.

I will also say that every time you post about it, all Peloton sees is engagement. You prove their point every time you post about it.

Actually, people would say you’re wrong, Tom. That’s because they stopped letting you post comments on OPP about Kim Kardashian. It’s turned off.

 

That’s funny. I didn’t know that. Taylor Swift. We can all like Taylor swift, right?

I do. There are plenty of people that don’t. Plenty of people don’t like her. Your sister is one of them. She’s so angry about Taylor Swift. She’s such a cute girl. What’s the problem?

She seems very nice.

The new Folklore album is coming out. Actually, the album is called Midnights, but they are doing a Folklore album yoga flow with La Tia Mariana. Her name is Mariana. I don’t know why they didn’t say her name. It was her Instagram handle. They’re doing an Evermore album yoga. There’s another yoga flow coming up I believe on the 17th. It’s going to be on Friday, September 9th. That one is with Kristin McGee. It’s nice that they’re continuing their partnership with Taylor.

—

There was a new apparel drop.

I don’t know what it is. It’s funny because it says, “The rumors are true. Text your bestie,” and then it shows Cody dancing and says, “Me on Thursday.” The bestie says, “What’s on Thursday?” “Rumor has it has new apparel.” It shows Jess Sims saying, “I’m so pumped.” Somebody said, “Set that calendar reminder, consider it booked.” I thought that was a cute little exchange. I don’t know if it’s because it’s fall. Is this going to be a fall drop? Is this going to be another capsule? I feel like it’s a little early for fall, but it could be a fall one.

If people want it in time for fall, they would start doing it now.

They’re confusing me with their drops. I don’t understand the drops anymore. There’s no, there’s no rhyme or reason. It’s all over the place.

Also, we should point out that you were on a podcast. I’m sure people would like to hear you without me. I know they’re out there.

I enjoyed this interview. It’s a podcast called Go Hard Chick. We talked about how I left corporate America slowly over time. It’s been this very slow shift.

They call that quiet quitting now. It’s got a name.

I’m part of the movement. It was a fun conversation. The person who was interviewing me had no idea like deep details about Peloton. I got to get nerdy when they ask a question.

It was all new to them.

I very much enjoyed it.

—

We have one and a half birthdays this week. One because we missed one. It wasn’t on our radar and that birthday is on September 7th. It’s Mila Lazar.

She’s a German instructor.

I was trying to make it Hispanic.

She might be for all I know but she teaches in German. I think she actually might have a Hispanic background, which makes it even more confusing how to say the name. I should probably take a class with her. She would say her name, and then I would know. That would solve that.

Also, on September 10th, it’s Hannah Corbin’s.

Happy birthday to both of you.

—

Joining us on this episode is Steve Chan. Welcome, Steve. Also, Steven occasionally as we know now or Stevie, but only on an internal monologue.

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Now, everyone in the world knows.

I got to know. Do you use that to ridicule or comfort yourself when you’re Stevie?

Are you motivating yourself in the Stevie parameters?

It’s definitely motivating my younger smaller self. It’s something that I adopted way early on in life when I was a little kid. I was a Stevie to myself.

I love that you said that. I hope you’re okay with us telling that. If you’re not, we can take it out.

No. Go for it.

I’m a junior so I grew up as a Tommy until my parents got divorced and my dad moved out. I then graduated. My mom got custody of me and I got custody of Tom.

Up until then, you were Tommy?

Yes.

His family to this day still calls him Tommy, which is weird for me because I’ve never once called him Tommy.

It has never bothered me. I think we’ve established on this show how lazy I am. It’s fewer letters to write at the top of your homework. It’s three letters instead of five. How much time has that saved me over the course of my life?

Although Steve doesn’t have the same issue because Stevie is only one extra letter and it’s a simple letter to write. You just have to add the I. Unless you’re throwing a Y on there, that could be more complicated. Now that we’ve had this riveting conversation, when did you first find Peloton?

We found Peloton in March of 2018. It was around that time.

I feel like you haven’t been here forever. You’ve always been part of the community. Are you sure?

It was at that point. You got say with the ride count, you would probably think that I was around for quite some time because I started riding like a madman once I started seeing all the positive results behind the bike and everything. It has been quite the ride since then.

How many rides are you up to then?

I think I’m knocking on 1,900, although the bulk of that certainly came many years ago or early on because I think during COVID, we added to our collection a Peloton tread. If you talk to anyone in the Feel Good Fam, you’ll certainly hear about it because I disappeared a little bit from the bike. It’s a funny story because my wife was the one who wanted to get the treadmill and I didn’t think I would get any use out of it, but I’m the one who uses it much more now these days. It’s pretty addicting, but I’m going to find my way back on the bike, now that the big studio opened up and everything.

Do you guys live close to the studio? Are you able to go frequently?

We live on Long Island. We live near somewhere at Jones Beach. For folks who are familiar with the area, it’s Exit 45-ish. We live close to the city so I think we were regular folks who hopped in on the LIRR. It’s about a 50-minute train ride in. With the new studio location, it’s close to Penn Station, so we go in regularly.

That was a lot of initials.

For the people in the Midwest, it was just a series of collection problems.

You leave in New York and that’s all I need to know.

The only thing I know about Long Island is, do you live next to Billy Joel? That’s all we need to know.

Is his house right next to yours?

 

Pretty much.

Are you and Billy Joel good friends?

I wouldn’t say that.

You see each other at the HOA meetings.

I was thinking when he took the trash out. Once a week, he goes to drive the trash to the curb or whatever. I picture you and Billy waving at the curb, “Hello.”

We’re first name basis, just “Billy.”

Are you like Tony Soprano with a cigar in a robe, weeping over ducks?

I’ve missed The Sopranos. That was a good show. You said Peloton made a lot of changes in your life. Were you a fitness person before you got the bike? Were you into this? What changed? What were the benefits you saw?

Am I a fitness person before? Absolutely not. Around the year that we got it, it was shortly after my birthday. I passed over that 30-year-old mark and I got to say that my metabolism was no longer that of a hummingbird. At that time, for the folks who know me and my wife, we are absolutely big eaters. We live right to eat. My metabolism was slowing down at that point. I certainly gained a lot of weight and I realized that I had to do something about it. For context for the folks out there, I am about 5’7” tall on a good day. I was tipping the scales at 205 pounds at my top weight. At that point, both my wife and I committed to the bike at the same time because being able to support each other helped.

I like to sometimes throw bombs into people’s marriages. Real quick, tell us how much your wife weighed at that time.

Do not do that. Do not answer that question. He’s going to lose the bike in the treadmill in one day, Tom. Stop it.

She gets the Bike and the Tread. You get the Guide.

As you were saying, your journey.

At that point, we had to make a change. Being a big tech guy, the idea of a live leaderboard competition, metrics, and tracking all that was amazing. What helped along the way was going through the Facebook page and coming across John Mills’ legendary setup that everyone out there knows about. You guys know what I’m talking about.

That big video screen and he had the bike projecting onto it. I’m like, “I want to do that.” I can’t tell you how many people I would have to tag John Mills. They’ll be like, “How do I cast from my screen?” “Tag John Mills.”

He’s an angel about that. He is willing to help out anyone who has any questions about it. I had questions for him coming into it too.

You went from not working out at all to working out all the time. You committed to the bike.

I went from one extreme to the other. My body was in shock from basically doing nothing, commuting to the city, and mowing the lawn. I was able to see great results from it. I’ve lost a great amount of weight because of it.

Can we ask how much weight you lost?

If we go end to end from the highest high to the lowest low, I was able to drop about 55 pounds. I went up to about 150 on the low. The plan at that point was to build up muscle at some point, but some other things came up. I never got to that point yet, but maybe at some point.

It’s not too late.

It’s not like you’re in your 50s.

If Tom can do it at 50, you can do it.

We’re the same height. Did you have to make major changes to your diet or because you’re in your 30s, were you able to work out and keep eating the same?

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If we look at the numbers, the first chunk came off a bit easy in a sense of I just had to hop on and ride with my favorite instructors. At some point, I had to make a change to my diet. Usually, with me, the rule of thumb is to keep it simple. You need something sustainable. From my perspective, it was making easier decisions with respect to what I was eating and lining it up with the calories I was burning with exercising, but I still enjoy my occasional Taco Bell trip, White Castle or you name it. I still do it all.

Enjoy that while you can. The clock is ticking.

Check back in ten years, guys.

It only gets harder. It’s not fair. It’s true, but I will say that men have an easier time of it than women. I’ve learned all the science behind that. We can have that conversation another time, but it’s incredibly frustrating.

That is because we get an extra workout every day from all the peeing. We hit 10,000 extra steps going to the bathroom to pee.

It’s better than what I thought you were going to say. When did you get involved in the Feel Good Fam and how did you change over to being one of the admins?

With the Feel Food Fam, my wife and I both connected with Alex. He is our favorite guy. We joined the group and we started having a larger presence. Not only in the studio, meeting up with anyone who would be coming in from all parts of the world, but with respect to the group, motivating others. We made a fair amount of friends through there. On the flip side, getting love and respect from Alex too on the leaderboard is nice. Everyone loves the occasional shout-out that they can get from anyone. I think that helped. That year was the peak of me and my Peloton fame because I think it was the same year where they did the modeling shoot with the home riders.

You were in that.

I was lucky enough to be invited to that. I think all of those things stacked up. At some point, the prior admins of the group reached out to me and said, “Do you want to take things over?” It was changing of the guard and change of pace type thing. The rest is history.

I remember one of the years for homecoming. Was it the first COVID year that you hosted Alex’s group thing too? There was a Q&A you hosted.

The Feel Good, Look Good, Do Better Talk that we did one year. That was such an amazing experience, but also very nerve-racking.

You seem very relaxed here. I’m sure that’s because you’ve gotten so used to it, not because you were not important.

I feel like we’re best friends at this point.

You did a great job with that in all seriousness. I remember that was such an unusual year because we all thought we were going to get together in person and then everything changed. Did that all come up right before you got to do the talk or was it always the plan as they started planning homecoming? I feel like Peloton likes to surprise people. I could see that being a very quick turnaround.

I remember we had to plan that. It was a very quick turnaround with respect to them asking if you want to do it. I’m waiting for the itinerary or what the plan is leading up to. Even in the actual session with Alex, he’s a great guy and everything, but there was some ad-libbing between the other sides and figuring out the proper flow through it. It was a tight deadline. For folks out there who don’t know me, I’m a big planner. If I’m going on vacation in November, I’m probably packed now. It was a little nerve-racking leading up to the event.

Since you lost weight, if you have any extra t-shirts you want to send to a listener, let me know.

Can anybody join the Feel Good Fam? Is it for anybody? Hopefully, they would love Alex. That’s the first criterion, but is there anything else they need to be able to do before they join?

Nope. The Feel Good Fam, if you want to join up, there’s a questionnaire that we ask you. You have to have a leaderboard name. We do expect folks who joined the group to be bike app or tread users. The other rules are basically around no self-promotion or selling of any kind, and being respectful. It’s a no-nonsense group. We have admins and moderators, but it’s self-policing. It’s a group of great folks who are just around to motivate each other or to have a great time and follow their favorite Alex Toussaint class and that’s it. If you love Alex and you want to join the rest of the FGF, sign up.

I feel like you guys have one of the last remaining original groups that still has a positive vibe. You keep it positive. I don’t mean that there’s never anything that comes up that isn’t tense or whatever, but in general, it’s all very lifting each other up. I appreciate that.

That’s one of the things that surprised us when we originally went on our journey to get the bike. I think a lot of people are surprised. To outsiders, it’s definitely like a cult if you think about it, but it’s a good one.

It’s a healthy cult. That is what I always say. At least, we’re healthy.

You even got matching shoes.

We didn’t expect the entire community that would come with it, which if anyone out there is on the fence about getting a bike, go for it. FGF is here. If you want some folks to support you. We’ve made a great number of friendships with folks all around the United States. It’s a good time.

I’m guessing you’re like us. Because you’re in a popular group, you probably have friends all over the country now. You could go anywhere and hang out with other Peloton people, which is amazing.

 

We went on a road trip. We went to South Carolina and met up with Peloton friends who came from Texas, Virginia and New Jersey. On the way back, some folks were nice enough to welcome us into their homes and have great meals with us. It’s been a blast. Everyone is so awesome.

At what point did you switch over to the tread? You started running on the tread. I know you said that this was your wife that instigated this. I say instigate because it sounds like there’s a little saltiness.

When did we get the treadmill? It was during the COVID times when we got it, but I can’t remember when. I am a regular user of it. I think at some point, the tread schedule lined up better for my life in general.

Who do you run with? I feel like this could get interesting. Are we going to make the Feel Good Fam mad?

Yeah. For me, I run generally with whoever aligns with the live schedule around 7:00. It is now what the new times are. Generally, I’ll run with Becs, Matt and Chase when he was around. Daniel McKenna is probably one of my favorites. I’m excited to meet him in real life, but whoever lines up with my schedule at that point because it’s the best time of the day for me to get my workout in.

You’re more tread agnostic. You’re Alex on the bike, but you’re tread agnostic.

If you can get Alex on the tread, I think that would be great.

You never know. I did think it was interesting seeing that video they released. It was talking about Ashton Kutcher and the 26.2 journey that he’s doing. That’s going to be a collaboration. I can’t remember what was called but it was motivational. They showed a bunch of the instructors and it was not just tread instructors. There were several bike instructors too, including Alex. I was like, “Maybe they’re going to show up on the treadmill and do a little teaching over there.”

That would be a fun April Fool’s Day prank like putting tread people on bikes and bike people on treads.

Everybody would lose their mind.

I remember when I was on the radio one year. We swapped morning shows. We were an alt-rock station. We swapped morning shows with the hip-hop station and we didn’t tell anybody. One day, on the alt-rock station, we had the hip-hop morning show on there. They weren’t even in the same cluster of stations. They were completely unrelated. We were like, “What do you think about this idea?” They were like, “We love it.”

You never had a real job, have you?

I was a checker at a grocery store. That counts. I did that for ten years.

Before we started recording, I was teasing Steve because he made a comment about being ready and our support and guidance. I was like, “You have a corporate job.” I was like, “Tom would never say anything like that.” He gets to decide things like which people play at his rock arena.

Who do I want to open for 38 Special, Marshall Tucker or Molly Hatchet?

Steve and I for our day jobs are like, “Yes. We’ll get back to you shortly. It will be an email and I will explain all that.”

“We are synergizing the process of distribution points.” I think that’s what grown-ups say.

He’s like, “I just read that email.” Back to the Feel Good Fam. How does the group support Alex? Are there interactions? Is there anything that you guys do to connect with him?

The Feel Good Fam is full of a lot of heavy hitters. I think you guys are seeing the performance of anyone who is in the Ride to Greatness. It’s certainly a highly competitive leaderboard in our group. I think the idea of being able to welcome anyone to or push anyone in the group has been something that we do. We certainly encourage anyone to be able to be willing to hop on and just to ride and welcome any new members.

A lot of folks in the group know each other only by leader board name. I think the rest of the Peloton world is like that as well. If you show up in the studio and you ask someone what their name is, you really want to know what their leaderboard name is. You don’t care what their real name is. Back when things were more normal, things are opening up now. We had regular meetups in the studio. We were doing the occasional brunch with respect to whoever was there and meeting up afterwards. The Feel Good Fam Homecoming was something that we had back in the day. That was my first opportunity where I met everyone in the group like John Mills and Erik Jäger. It was a fun time. We’re hoping to get some things back together on that front. There are lots of plans.

Also, not knowing what Peloton is going to do. It’s such a weird time right now because everybody wants to go to the studio, but everybody is going to want to go back in May. If you don’t live in an area that’s close and easy to get to the studio, it’s tough because it’s like, “I don’t want to use up my travel time and expenses now because I want to go back to Homecoming, but then I want to get to the studio.” It’s tough. It’s a lot to juggle. Plus none of us has left our houses so we want to go everywhere. There’s that too.

We’ve left our house.

We have. I just meet the rest of the world. In general, we have traveled less over the last few years.

We have a whole episode about how they almost wouldn’t let us go on our cruise. People yelled at us, “Have you left your house.”

The community is there to push you. Click To Tweet

I meant “we” as the general larger we, Tom.

We then went to Dallas two weeks later. They’re going to yell at you for trying to get out in front of it. What is your leaderboard name and then we don’t have to care about Steve Chan anymore?

If you guys want to find me on the leaderboard, it’s @icemanChanX. I’m a software engineer by trade so if you look at the leaderboard name, it is CamelCase with the upper lowercase letters in there to break it up. You can find me on a leaderboard mostly at Alex’s classes on the bike and then on the treadmill any day at 7:00 or 7:30.

What did you say that’s called? What kind of case?

It’s CamelCase.

I didn’t know it had a name.

I feel a joke coming.

No. I do that a lot of times because it’s easier to read. I didn’t know that it had a name. Now, I know.

He’s going to start using that. He’s going to file that away in his pop culture brain and he’s going to start whipping that out. He definitely will. You said you have a favorite instructor. Do you ride with anybody else besides Alex? Is that it?

Alex is the main one that I ride with now. Anyone who does a pop-punk ride or pop-punk music is something that I’m into. I used to be big on Power Zone. Matt used to do the Saturday morning, the long ones. I don’t know if he still has it.

I think they come and go.

I did Holly Cole one time. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again. That was long.

It was brutal.

Your love of pop-punk reminds me that the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes are coming to town.

I guess I know what we’re doing that day. Do you have any advice for people who have just gotten their Peloton, whether it be a Bike or Tread or a Guide?

My only advice would be to not be afraid to try it, coming from someone who never wanted to exercise, ride a bike or even run. I was never a runner. Don’t be afraid to try if you have certain goals in life. As far as levels of physical fitness, hop on. Give it a shot. Growing up, I didn’t learn how to ride a real bicycle until a late point in life. I think the first time that I had to go out of the saddle, it was a terrible site but I’m able to do it now. Don’t be afraid to try and the community is there to push you.

You said you’re competitive with the bike. Are you competitive on the treadmill too?

Yes. That live leaderboard is what pushes me and also trying to beat your PR. It’s something that I think everyone goes for.

Which one drives you harder, the tread or the bike?

I got to say at this point, I feel like the tread is a much harder workout. The leaderboard is usually much smaller in that class too so it is probably slightly easier to be if not harder.

That’s what I was thinking. I had a feeling. I was like, “Competition-wise, I feel like the treadmill would be more up your alley.” I was just guessing. That was just fun for me.

Any advice for people beta testing the rower? Let’s get them all in there.

Keep rowing.

I’m excited about that.

 

Are you going to get one? That’s a yes.

Maybe. We’ll have to see. We were actually on the fence about getting a Tonal at some point. I’m somewhat secretly hoping that Peloton might have a Tonal-type thing.

Lots of people are.

We’re going to hold out as long as we can but, I could see a rower in our future.

Based on everything I’ve heard, I don’t think that it’s going to happen anymore. What they had planned for Peloton is no longer happening, but things change.

I was going to ask you if you have room for a rower, but since you live next door to Billy Joel, I’m assuming you have plenty of space. Worst case scenario, you put it in the servant’s quarters. It’s a little bonus for the working class. That’s the key. You’re a giver is what it comes down to. Steve, thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you and all the stuff.

If you guys want to find me on Facebook, I’m Steve Chan. Join the Feel Good Family group. You’ll see me in there usually posting nice things or trash-talking other people in a nice way because we’re all family. On Instagram, I’m @IcemanChanX is where you’d be able to give me a follow.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for having me.

—

I guess that wraps up this episode. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

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

 

Important Links

• Steve Chan – Twitter
• Feel Good Fam – Facebook group
• Steve Chan – Facebook
• @IcemanChanX – Instagram
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Spotify – The Clip Out
• Google Podcasts – The Clip Out
• iHeart – The Clip Out
• TuneIn – The Clip Out
• Patreon.com/TheClipOut
• Facebook.com/TheClipOut
• YouTube.com/TheClipOut
• Sweating Together
• Yahoo – How to Use the TalkBack Screen Reader on Your Peloton Equipment
• The New York Times – Trying to Sell Your Old Peloton Bike? So Is Peloton.
• Dr. Jenn Mann
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• Hump Day With Dr. Jenn
• TomsGuide.com – I just did the Peloton core challenge — here’s what happened to my abs
• FemaleFirst.co.uk – Ashton Kutcher is ‘getting marathon ready’ in new partnership with Peloton
• Go Hard Chick – podcast episode with Crystal O’Keefe
• Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe
• Instagram – Clip Out Crystal
• Twitter – Clip Out Crystal
• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Facebook.com/tomokeefe

 

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