Hi, I'm Tony riddle. And this is the natural life stylist podcast. So way back in December. I had this crazy idea to run from Land's End to John o'groats in just 30 days, but I wasn't just going to run it. I was going to run it Barefoot to raise funds for environmental Charities and collaborate with world-leading experts to raise awareness and money for six organizations fighting the top sustainability issues of our time. I knew running Barefoot would raise many are socially extreme eyebrow and with that eyebrow raising Behavior, I would be able to provide a perfect platform to highlight the importance of connecting with our environment and those key sustainability issues of our time today. I'm joined behind the mic with Miry wild rise Fierce wild swimming surfing and sustainability sister the one and only Sophie Hellyer or to those closer to her Sophie. Hell, yeah. So if he was once a champion Surfer National level she co-created the movement rise Fierce which inspires women to try Cold Water Swimming promoting body neutrality and improving mental and physical health. So if he has become a prominent voice on matters of ocean pollution plastic waste sustainable fashion eco-friendly living as I taken forever to run 20 miles to get to Sophie. This is a brief combo of just Five minutes however, its potent and we packed in a lot of sustainability magic here. I really do. Hope you enjoy that magic. Peace out. So I'm here with wonderful Sophie you forgot your name Sophie's 2025 miles in today, and I'm a bit wiped, but we're going to I'm going to hold space because I realized that No problem with his commitment to running 30 miles a day was also to hold space for sustainability experts. I'm going to call Sophia sustainability expert because I've been following her for quite some time now as well as being like, you know into wild swimming just like myself and rewilding there's so much more to her and I think I think we all need to hear from Sophie and it's just a shame. We only have about 20 minutes. Yeah, but welcome Sophie Hi, it's really good to see you. Nearly solved on your shoulder. Just thought it was like I just needed that female energy. It's going to bring me in another few miles to go. Yeah, so people might know you as Surfer. Yeah. Yes. It's kind of weird as well be lost what I do and because I haven't surfed like competitively for a long time now, so and I've been living in London the last year so it's still I'm still like very attached to the fact I Surf and I'm a surfer but it's not really what I do for a job. Anyway, yeah, so that's so that's for people who don't know Sophie. Hell. Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah what have so few do Sophia? What is the Sophie do? I hold women's Retreats that cold water swimming yoga and surfing have an amazing hashtag. What is it? I'm raised fears rise first. I love without a woman's kind of outdoor wild swimming movement of cobras face. It did begin about Getting up in the morning and being Fierce and it became about so much more about like rising up in life to meet whatever challenges. Yeah your friend took with. Yes. I run the women's Retreats. I also write for different magazines and newspapers. So right I basically use sport as a vehicle to talk about the going keep going keep going environmental and just gonna ditch the chair can't cope. How's the camera loved with? All right it sorry James. I'm just friend giant. Sorry. Here we go. James is on fire. We good. Yeah, I right. Freelance different magazines and newspapers and I've basically use sport as a vehicle to talk about different environmental and feminist issues social issues, I guess. Yeah, and I do bit freelance producing and I do some public speaking and yeah, I get converted a different job every week. It is a different job every week. It seems like that if there's someone that follows you it's like, ah, she's so busy you like it's like work work work work work. So if we talk about sustainability, how do you sustain that yourself? You know because we're all in the same. Nobility, but also needs to be yeah. Look, how does Sophia the human absolutely stain and I really do. I know I had a bit of a challenging day yesterday. Someone very close to me lives with some quite serious mental health issues and can be really hard for me to support that. Sometimes I really like for me the Cold Water Swimming is my That's my kind of Savior. Yeah, like for me that it going in the cold Waters like hitting the reset button. It just helps me like completely restart. Day deal with everything in the same with if I can't go swimming than yoga like finding that space on my mat and that time is kind of really the meat. I'm like the water is my church, I guess. Yes lovely. I feel that. It's been my savior on this run its kind of we're staying at the moment on this farm and I have an avid ice stream and a fire and I get in sit in the Stream and it's just like if if there was a sound to it would definitely be you know, as I put my feet into the water and then I can just feel the system just starting to just melt away ready, which is bizarre because you're in cold water, right but it's just it's that softening. It's definitely a great space to get into. Yes what it's a Outside the human of Sophie then let's get this guy into sustainability. We're going to smash through it because we've got like a really quick time now Tony's got an important. I've got I've got I've got I've got a phone call the BBC plastic free periods. Yeah. So because yeah mom and dad of three girls right now, you're gonna have to go there and I think and I think these conversations are so important again, like why am I running this 30 miles a day 30 consecutive days. It's because that's what I can do. Right something I can give ya know. It's a message to my kids that when I'm older in 20 years time it's not going to be but what did you what did you do in with this huge decline right now? And so I want to be able to educate them in things like plastic free periods. Right? Yes. I definitely there so I grew up surfing in North Devon and it was a regular occurrence there to see use sanitary pads and tampons and condoms kind of floating past you in the sea and of had sanitary pads kind of hit me in the face before and I'm paddling for a wave and the fool the Stick tampon applicators as like I did a beach clean actually on the Thames by my house and London. I saw it. I saw it could be found and our I think I found like maybe 40 plastic tampon applicators on the beach. Basically anything that goes down the toilet ends up in the rivers or in the sea, if not in landfill having landfills probably the best place it can go which is pretty depressing. But luckily there are loads of reusable kind of sustainable alternatives to So like tampons most tampons have like a lot of them have plastic applicators. But even the ones that don't contain a thin layer of plastic inside them and they basically bleach cotton balls. That's pretty nasty thing to be putting inside yourself and sanitary pads contain the same plastic as about four or five plastic carrier bags and in the UK the last night endocrine disruptors as well, right? Yeah. I have no idea how bad it is for your body, but I'm sure it's but it's normalized totally normalized and actually the the ReUse Alternatives are not normalized in people think they're kind of weird and hippyish, but which is I mean, I guess I'm a hippie but in the UK, I think it's 2.5 million tampons and 1.5 million sanitary pads are flushed down the toilet every single day. That's okay. It's a whole lot of kind of plastic just getting flushed down the toilet and most of it funny its way out into the sea. Yeah, and it's so aligns with surface against sewage or I met him right here. You to really be hitting it off you baby. I'm going to make you go next week really moving down to that area soon. So yeah, it's just such great work. Yeah, absolutely, you know because really we talkin about what the individual can do right now, right? Yeah, and it's, you know taking control of like especially for a woman for to couldn't take control of her cycle like that and I went I don't know how far in debt to go with it. But if your stove it's like one of the main reusable Alternatives is menstrual cups. Yes. I use one called of Cup, which is just a cup works like a small little cell a good cop. You're busy just fold and pop inside yourself. It collects the blood for eight hours. You pop it out empty it rinse it reuse it. So you're not flushing it down the toilet and getting rid of it at the end. You just reusing this slick and cup for years. Wow. Well, nothing leaks is now you don't need pads or anything on that with it. I mean, if you're scared of leakage, then you can leave it in for like up to eight hours as well as you'd have to be changing it all the time, which is really useful. You can also get period pants, which is great especially for teens. So like when you're young girls come into Having their periods period pants are amazing because you just put on pants and carrying them and they are growing or they're quite common now. I think they're definitely getting more mentoring and more popular as a couple of brands that make quite there's like friends like thinks and flux are making like good stylish pants. And again, that's moving towards Organics. And yeah animal. Yeah, absolutely, but the using the cup kind of makes you really in tune with your cycle a bit more because you're kind of seeing the blood and the color of the blood consistency of the blood and just kind of like for me that's the aspect of The rewarding part again just it's not this thing that you never seen you flush a way. It's like you're actually getting in tune with what's coming out your body on one cycle. I think you're so important, isn't it? Because Yeah, I think most people are lost touch any way that lost touch of a hormonal system and it's so important, isn't it? Yeah, totally. So what about alternatives for contraception? And so I track my cycle there's obviously there's an absolutely no one-size-fits-all contraception and you kind of have to work out what works for you and and it's some people have conditions they can't do certain things, but I track my psyche I take my temperature every morning. Yeah, I use an app, which I know a lot of this gets a lot of press some Some bad, but I use an app called natural cycles, which works really well for me and my body so I have a really regular cycle. I sleep about the same amount every night, you know, I go to bed at 10:00 and I wake up at 6:00. And yeah, so for me the regular lifestyle it really fits. I just take my temperature every morning. I put it in the app and the algorithm basically tells me whether I'm on a Green Day or red day. And if you're on a red day, it means that you use if you're having sex and you're not looking to conceive then you just use other contraception to on a red day. Yeah, we would either. The use condoms or yeah, so I have been off of the pail for about God. I was on the pill from when I was 15 for a decade. So 10 years on the contraceptive pill wreaking havoc on the hormonal system. Yeah, which again I mean for some people the pills amazing and for some people it really works. But yeah to me like that was a really challenging time for me and my life and I had I was experiencing depression and I'm not sure what affects my hormones had and all of that as well. So Felt really good to kind of come off of it and embrace the natural thing a little bit more. It definitely suits My Lifestyle better. Well, it is getting back into rewilding against an it. And I guess if you worked with that when you're working with your cycle, you have so much more in tune aren't you? Yeah, it's yeah, absolutely. It's a kind of a delicate thing to talk about and a lot of people whenever I talk about tracking my cycle the natural way, I get a lot of pushback and a lot of people kind of speaking up against it. It seems to be the thing that People want to police the most in a way, like people aren't very happy to hear that you're embracing your cycle and tracking it naturally like you but I could sit but the stats on how successful that is compared to so the app I use is FDA-approved contraception and it's in the same Effectiveness category as a contraceptive pill now you can is more effective than condoms to find higher Effectiveness category is on condoms. I don't know if top of my head but I think condoms like in high 80s Okay, I wouldn't want to say the exact stats you have to do it so you can find out in a quick Google but the pill and the app with like with normal use or whatever in the mid-90s. Yeah, and then I think that IUD like the coil is the highest one. Yeah, but you know people say like yes, I'm your cycle and it's traits of stagnation. Yeah, and they get a lot of mechanical back pain is that other stuff that comes through with that? Yeah, I know a few of my friends have had them fitted and had a bad experience, but I'm sure for every bad experience is a good experience. Yeah. Hmm. I just yeah the it's interesting whenever I talk about tracking my cycle the Natural Way, someone will always come up and go all my friends got pregnant doing that. But I'm sure a lot of people friends have also got pregnant using condoms and on the pill, but for some reason you never get the bite back if you don't like the the yeah because you're seeing is this Stage IT seen again as socially extreme. Yeah, that's perfect. Normal, yeah, right and it's been like that forever. Right? Hmm. Obviously not using temperature other means yeah, it's so good. So V because I was hit by a question on a podcast. It was wandering into work wandering into wild knit wandering into wildness mildness into wondering and somewhere through the podcast woman said to me just because it's my field. I think I just want to ask you what are you going to teach? What are you going to teach your children around their cycle? Hmm? Mmm, and I was it was so out of context because we were off on some kind of on another Journey. Yeah, and I was a bit like I go I guess Katarina's going to have that conversation with them which I would expect which seems perfectly normal to me that it would be the mom that would be in there. But I think it's also important for dads to have an understanding of it totally to be involved and to help celebrate it the same as what I said if I had a son that you know, I'm going to create like a real rite of passage around his voice breaking. Yeah, the loader Emilio again. I want to create a ceremony or a celebration. I know I for them to honor it, you know much like shame and stigma attached around these areas. And yeah, absolutely like what if when you got your first period you threw a little party and you will likely celebrate it as opposed to like hiding in thinking it's just dirty thing and I think that addressing that shame around it and kind of breaking period two views is the first stage to addressing like period poverty other things like FGM. So going on in the UK was very proud of poverty. See her poverty is basically this loads of girls and women in the UK and all over the world who can't who don't go to school when they're on their period so if you can't afford proper period products. Wow, then you know, if you have you haven't got pair of products, then you just be bleeding through essentially. So you you can't afford those products and you miss school on Thursday. Okay. So how sustainability how long does the Cup last it's definitely the more sustainable option. I think I have to double-check on the thing. I should know this more than three years so schools could Yes, you can you could get behind there. So my friend at City to see Nats a charity they kind of got behind there. They started the hashtag plastic free periods at the moment schools. There's a new thing it's amazing schools of said in the UK, they're going to give free period products to all school kids in primary and secondary schools and UK, which is amazing. That is amazing. However, okay, what they what it could be likely to happen would be that they give out a lot of Plastic Products, right? So schools have also have the AIM that they're going to go play. A stick three like they will Michael Gove said all schools are going to go pass it free by 2022 or something. Okay. So it makes no sense for them to start giving these free period plot products out and be given loads of free plastic period products so Nazi to see they started in jazz. They started a petition to Michael Gove to make sure he only accepts like tender for the bid for this plastic free periods from from companies that are doing plastic free periods. Sorry, so hopefully A lot of people have got behind it. We've got loads of school teachers have signed it. I'll share the link on my social feeds. We can put it in here as well. Yeah, and then hopefully what will happen is that when the schools start giving out the three products will be that they're giving out, you know, organic cotton tampons menstrual cups and period pants instead of loads of plastic shit. Yeah fingers crossed amazing. Hmm. There's amazing where we at. We have five minutes Sophie. So I have to where we are. So we're not just goes right in a particles in it where we are. So we're about to go for a run together and we're going to little trip together. I'm going to wear shoes though. Well, I need a five-minute radio thing and then we're gonna go for a troll. You're gonna have some shoes on I'm gonna wear some shoes because I don't actually I think it's known as the guys at Vivo who told me that I shouldn't just go straight into running like 510 K Beth. I should do my like normal 5K in them for the last K like changing to Barefoot and slowly. Change my lifestyle to Barefoot. Yeah, that's if you're not being necessarily taught in technique, if you're taught the appropriate technique and posture Rhythm relaxation and what we've breath work and stuff like that. Then you can certainly get yourself to a track and just get around the track and then do some more drills and go off again. We're going to do technique when you're back enhance their but for today I play what we can do loads in the back in Hampstead on the ponds again, it's going to get colder and I saw you doing a little technique session with Richie on his stories, so I copied some of What you've done with he's meeting me he's coming. He's coming on the 10th cool strength Temple. So let's just go back to sustainability. So what would you say people can be actioning today? What are the things they can be doing to be be the change and to make a difference in the yeah. So I guess there's like the big ones in the little ones the littlest things are things like number one carrying a reusable water bottle every is kind of annoying. They like a clunky thing to carry around but if you can do that and start saying no to plastic bottles, that's kind of a massive win in your personal. Yeah, I guess the big ones are reducing your meat consumption and eating kind of sustainable. Well Source meat instead of bad, you know meat from cheap meat for yeah industrialized domesticated. Yeah and what it fed me number two. It's secondhand September at the moment. So fast fashion is really really bad for the environment. I don't miss out on these things. I never know where they are. There's so many of them secondhand September second hand clothes for September, but it is a slow fashion season as well any at all. Or buy second-hand. Yeah, and then yes sustainable travel. So seeing if you can do staycations holidaying locally trying to reduce your flying. So yeah for me. Those are the kind of big three of you can reduce your meat consumption reduce your fast facing fashion consumption and stop flying quite as much as it doesn't mean don't fly ever, but just try and cut out the cheap weekends abroad brilliant. Yeah that and then on a small scale level reusable water bottles. Try and buy your veg at the Market or you know a boxer doing this great sign up at the moment. We get your box for the first box for a fiver and explain odd box odd, but I haven't had one yet myself. I've I have the river third one, which I think you get to right. Yeah, I love the veg box of box of the ones that supermarkets only take perfect orange straight carrots and perfect red round tomato. So any that the supermarket say no to because they're odd shapes or colors or box go and collect them all up and send them out. So you're kind of getting perfectly good veg that some slightly odd shape. There we go. Yeah. Yeah, there are few things that yeah, it's a few things to make a difference make the change. Thank you, Sophie. No worry, you're wonderful. And if you're a person who has periods try some reusables. Try some reusables. There we go. Wow, so that was a Punchy conversation short sweet, but delivering everything it needed to I really enjoyed my time as Sophie had earlier what a being she is as a father of three daughters. I found this conversation. So vital you can find out all about Sophie's dead Endeavors including her rise fears Retreats via her Instagram page or by heading to Sophie helier.com if you like the Besides in in please show some love by spreading the message wide and far if you have in any way been inspired by my barefoot sustainably running challenge, then please make a donation to one or more to sustainability environmental organizations that I am fundraising for. You will find all the just giving pages in The Links provided remember peeps. We can't all live in nature, but that doesn't mean we can't live naturally.
I really enjoyed my time behind the mic with the one that is Sophie Hellyer - what a being she is. I had just completed 20 slow and sticky barefoot miles and found that we only had 20 mins to drop the mic! Yes, 20 minutes might seem short in time, but it was punchy and definitely didn’t fall short in delivering the integrity of Sophie’s sustainability message. You never know which way a conversation is going to go, but I was delighted with the direction of this. As a father to three daughters I found this particular sustainability conversation of vital importance. You can find out about all of Sophie’s endeavours including her risefierce reteats via @sophiehellyer or by heading to www.sophiehellyer.com. If you have in anyway been inspired by my barefoot sustainability running challenge then please make a donation to one or more of the sustainability and environmental organisations that I am fundraising for; Rain Forest Alliance https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tony-riddle1 Extinction Rebellion https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tony-riddle-extinctionrebellion Surfers Against Sewage https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tony-riddle-surfersagainstsewage Care International https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tony-riddle Client Earth https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tony-riddle-clientearth Greenpeace Uk https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tony-riddle-greenpeace 