Episode 8: Looking After Yourself, New Adventures & The Power of Community

This week on Adventure Geek Radio, we’re talking about something we often put at the bottom of the list… ourselves.

After finally having treatment on a foot problem I’ve ignored for years, I share a simple story that really made me stop and think. If someone gave you your dream car and told you it had to last a lifetime, you’d look after it. So why don’t we treat our bodies the same way?

We also celebrate the incredible Adventure Geek community after our walk leaders stepped in to cover my walks while I recovered, proving once again that this really is more than just a walking group.

Plus, in this week’s episode:

• The new Shropshire Three Peaks Challenge 
• Maxine explains why walking should be as essential as eating, sleeping and breathing.
• Pete is back with the weekly Round Robin.
• Another Mystery Sound for you to guess.
• I share the story behind my new Meta AI glasses.
• The first Albania Travel Journal is now live.
• And we celebrate walking 1,571 miles together during July so far – that’s the equivalent of walking from Towcester to Alicante!

So, grab a cuppa, lace up your walking boots and come and join me for another friendly chat.

Live your best life. 💚

Adventure Geek is a friendly adventure community based in the UK, helping people improve wellbeing through walking, travel, friendship and real-life experiences.

🥾 Walking groups
 🌍 UK & overseas adventures
 💚 Wellness, community & connection

Find out more:
 https://adventuregeek.co.uk
https://adventuregeektravel.co.uk

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share or leave a review — it genuinely helps more people discover the community.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Hello, hello, hello, and a very warm welcome to the Adventure Gig Radio Show. Now we're on episode 8, which is slightly scary because it feels like we've really just started. Anyway, my name is Julia Doherty, and as always, thank you for joining us or joining us, joining me, and spending a little bit of your day with me today. Now, this isn't just about me chatting away for 20 minutes, we've got plenty of voices joining us again this week. So Pete's back with the round robin uh question. Um, I've got a little bit of audio which is all about um your childhood, which is actually quite funny, uh, childhood memories and how we all perceived our childhood. That was one of the conversations we had this week. So, as always, grab yourself a cupper, or maybe you're just listening while you're out walking, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, let's just get started. So, let's start off with the quote of the week, and that is take care of your body, it's the only place you have to live, and that's by a guy called Jim Rohn. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes you hear something and it's just exactly the right time that you needed to hear it. So, I've been listening to the audiobook by Stephen Bartlett, um, it's based on his podcast diary of a CEO, uh, and it's just brilliant. But he was talking about a story that Warren Buffett um mentioned. So imagine this. Imagine somebody handed you the car of your dreams today, but there was one catch, it had to last you for the rest of your life. You know, if you had that like dream car from day one, you'd service it, you'd clean it, you'd fix every single scratch. You certainly wouldn't ignore any strange noises, or you know, if you dinked it, then you'd want to get it sorted ASAP because you wouldn't want rust to develop because it had to last you the rest of your life. And then he talked about why don't we treat our bodies that way? And and that sort of struck a core with me. As many of you know, I've I've had problems with my foot over the years, my left foot. I've I've led holidays, I've organised walks, I've put it on ice, I've strapped it up, I've ignored it, I've carried on, and as always, another excuse uh not to deal with it. There was always some excuse, I was just too busy to get it sorted. Well, this week I finally had the injection and the treatment done or the procedure done. Blimey, it was painful. But you know, my word for this year was or is protect, so protect my business, protect my relationships, protect my future. And part of protecting my future is looking after the only body that I'm ever gonna get. So here's my question for you this week: what have you been putting off? Maybe it's a health check, maybe it's replacing those walking boots that have absolutely no grip left, maybe it's simply giving yourself permission to rest. Whatever it is, perhaps this is your little reminder. Right, let's see what's been happening in the world of Adventure Geek this week. So I was reminded this week how just amazing the community is. So, as many of you know, I've had a foot procedure this week at the hospital, I've already mentioned, and they basically turned around to me and said, No walking for seven days, Julia. And now, for most people, you know, that's not a huge issue. For me, uh, that's a diary full of walks, weekends away, people were depending on me as well. But you know what? Within a couple of hours, I'd sent a few messages out to our walk leaders, and honestly, the just response was incredible. Kelly stepped in and she went out and walked on Wednesday and wrecked a brand new walk that she then led on Thursday. Thanks, Kelly. Paula offered out with Grandchester uh walk that I've got on Sunday. Gillian offered to take over the Wickham walk that I'm doing we're doing on Monday, and Paul picked up Monday evening's walk as well. Not a single walk was cancelled, and not one person missed out, and that's because Adventure Geek has just never been about me, it's it's about the brilliant group of people who genuinely look after one another. So if you're one of our walk leaders listening, I just want to say thank you, you guys rock, uh, and you make my week a lot less stressful. Now, talking about getting outdoors, we've got a brand new challenge that's literally just gone live on the website, and it's the shrop uh Shropshire. Try saying that if you've had a few, uh Three Peaks Challenge. Richard Jones is leading it, actually calls it the Stroppy Hills rather than the Shropshire Hills, um, because they are a bit challenging. So this particular one is around 16 and a bit miles, it's fantastic hill walking, and it's led by the amazing Richard Jones. Although I'll be there too, um, but most of the time I'll probably be at the back, and my job's going to be tail walking that particular one. So, a nice thing about this challenge is that you've got almost a year to get ready for it. So, if you've been looking at something to work towards, it's always good to have something not just to look forward to, but something that's always going to challenge you. Uh, that something that perhaps gently nudges you outside your comfort zone, then this could be exactly the motivation you need. So, something else I've been thinking about this week. So, one of my travel suppliers has come to me with some really good offers on some short adventures. They're things that they're trialing out, and they've wondered if my audience might be interested in doing it. And I've got rid some really good prices. So, um, we're talking about places like Iceland doing a trip there, Sweden, Bosnia. Now, you know, when he described it, I just thought, wow, that sounds amazing. Bosnia is not a place that I've actually thought about visiting. So Bosnia is on the list and Morocco, nothing's planned yet. This is me just sounding out to you guys. Uh one thing I've learned over the last few years that a four-day adventure seems to work really well. So, all of these will just be like four-day trips. Uh, they're long enough to properly explore somewhere, uh, but short enough that you don't need to use all your annual leave for those of you that are working. So, generally, I'd genuinely sorry, I'd love to know you know which one makes you go, oh, that sounds good. I quite fancy that. Just drop me a message, let me know. You never know, it might become an adventure geek trip of the future. Right, so let's stay on the subject of moving because our little cycling group is beginning to gather some momentum. So, Paul's been leading our Thursday daytime rides, and it's been lovely hearing about how everyone's been enjoying them. They actually uploaded some videos uh this week in the AG cycling WhatsApp group, and it's just really good fun seeing them out and about, especially enjoying the weather as well. Uh, this week they're out from Whedon, next week they're heading over towards Daventry, and eventually I'd love to introduce the occasional weekend ride as well, but I don't think we're quite there yet. So, if you've got a bike sitting in the garage gathering dust, this might be just the excuse you've been waiting for. So, I know I've been off with my foot, I've not really been able to do much walking, but I did actually slow down a little bit and I went to the sound bath this week. Now I know they're not for everyone, and some people absolutely love them, others others think they're a bit woo-woo and a bit unusual, but personally I find them incredibly relaxing. In fact, I relax so much, I actually fell asleep this week. Uh, apparently, there's this beautiful like aboriginal flute playing. I mean, Sean was actually playing this flute, and Maxine commented afterwards saying how much she loved it. Do you know what? I didn't hear a single thing. I I was completely away with the fairies. Anyway, um, if you've been thinking about trying something a little bit different, our next Adventure Geek sound bath is in September. So please come along. If nothing else, you'll get the best nap you've ever had. I just had a thought as I was recording that, I'm gonna put at the end of this podcast um just like uh an example of what a sound bath sounds like because some people wouldn't really have a clue. So you just sit down, relax, close your eyes, and then have a listen to a minute or two at the end of this, which is um uh like an excerpt from a sound bath. Okay, and finally, just let you know, you're gonna notice me wearing some new glasses over the coming weeks. Um, my new meta AI glasses have arrived. Well, the glasses have arrived, but my lenses haven't, so I'm still waiting for the lenses to arrive. But yes, I know I love a gadget, and that's why it's called Adventure Geek. So the geek is all to do with my love of gadgets, that's where it originated from. Anyway, these glasses are just fascinating. I love them and I'm very excited about it. But they can do things like I can just look at a flower and I can say what sort of flower is this, or what trees are these, or what bird is that? Um, literally, just while we're out walking. Uh, I can look at a building and just say, Can you tell me the history of this building? Or can you navigate me following all trails? I was so I've got all trails on my phone, and it will just say left, right. So hopefully, yeah, I should be hoped to obliterate all squiggles. I'll say that now, but you never know, do you? Anyway, um, I know it takes photos and videos, which is another reason why I like it, but I just wanted you guys to know that I promise I will never take a photo or a video without anybody knowing about it. Uh, that's a oh it just feels a little bit sneaky to do that, and I wouldn't do that. Uh, and just so you know as well, if you know the way that meta AI glasses work, um, it's got like a light on the left hand side of the lens, so you can always tell if I am or if anyone is recording because the light comes on. Um, so if I'm looking at you and the lights on, you'll know that I'm recording. But I promise you, I will not do any recording without you knowing about it first. Anyway, that's my disclaimer. Right, let's move on to this week's extra voices uh from the Adventure Geek community because we've got another great well-being walk from Maxine or well-being thought, not well being walk. Pete's back with his round robin, and of course, we have the mystery sound that's waiting right for you. So, we're gonna start off with an interview that I had with Maxine a couple of weeks ago, and this week she's talking about walking and how walking is not just exercise, and it's not as it's not something that we just fit into our lives, it's something that we should do that's very much like breathing or eating or sleeping. She explains it a lot better than I do. So let's head over and listen to Maxine. Okay, so I have the lovely Maxine with us again, giving us some Maxine Minutes' words of wisdom this week. So, Maxine, I'm gonna ask you one question Is walking enough?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Is it enough for what health? Is it enough for fitness?

SPEAKER_04 10:57

Um, I think I'm I'm thinking because we were talking before, and you were saying that walking should be in a different category to what we think of. We think of walking as exercise, but you say that really it should be the same as breathing and it should be the same as you know the sleep and things like that that we look after. We need walking as a human being.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Because what happens when we walk, um, so many of the pr uh processes in the body rely on that movement to um support the body. We want to have that walking in that um side of eating, sleeping, breathing, it's as important. Um, if you're thinking more um building cardiovascular um heart strength, if you're thinking of muscular strength, then you there are other things you can do in the gym in um hiking, you know, longer walks, but generally a daily walk does more for you. Um and there are so many benefits to walking.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

So um you were talking about fluids and then walk-in, you need you you need to why do you need to move fluids around your body at all?

SPEAKER_02 12:18

So you have you have many fluid systems within the body. Um, the blood, which most people know, that's pumped around by the heart, so we don't have to do much about that, just look after our heart. Um, another fluid system, the lymphatic fluid system, relies on movement, it also relies on breath. Come to yoga, I can teach you how to move your lymphatic fluid through breath, but it does rely on movement. Um, so the pounding of your feet, the the rhythm of your walking acts like a pump and pumps fluids back up into your body. So your lymphatic fluid system um is external from your blood system and it needs to re-enter to get processed, um, all the bad stuff to get cleaned out of your lymphatic system, gets processed, um, and for that to happen, it has to work its way up your body into the areas that it can access.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Is that why we always need wild weeds? You know, everyone always as soon as you've been walking for like 10 minutes, especially women, suddenly say, I wonder if that's because you've been moving and using fluids.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Well, the the the movement, going back to the movement of walking, if you move with a slight hip sway, if you think of your middle um body and your intestines, um you're having a little bit of a massage backwards and forwards. So motility of the gut, your it speeds up, yep, it speeds up all of those processes because you're having a natural massage backwards and forwards. So the more you can loosen your arms and you let the um waist move, the more you'll get the benefit of that walking um rhythm in your actual internal organs.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

You can't see this, guys, but you're sitting here like swaying backwards and forwards, it's like having a bit of a dance on the well.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

We want to keep our internal organs nice and um mobile, we don't want them to stick to our internal fascia. Um, so walking is the most easiest way of doing that. You've got that um obviously the fresh air, you've got many, many reasons.

SPEAKER_04 14:31

Brilliant, okay. So, lesson from today then is walking enough? Yes, and you need to be doing it every day.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Need to be doing it ideally after every meal.

SPEAKER_04 14:41

Oh, yeah, we did talk about that in our bedroom.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Ten minutes after every meal.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

Okay, so I've been trying to do that. So literally you have something to eat and then you fork down, for it down on over just round the block.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yeah, just to blunt the insulin spike so that your body isn't working really, really hard dispensing insulin um for to squirrel away for fat stores. Don't get me wrong, insulin is excellent in the body, but we don't want too much of it, we don't want it to spike, especially if it's a carby heavy um meal and there's depending on how you've balanced your plate, um, you can do things to stop an insulin spike. But if you're mac and cheese or something and it's it's going up, walking is the easiest way to blunt it. As soon as you start walking, it's not reliant on insulin to scroll the um blood sugar into your muscles, so it will do it automatically. The gates will open and the muscles will draw the sugar directly into the muscles.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

And it will do it naturally, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah, without the need of insulin, so you won't release as much insulin.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

It's hard though, you know. If you had like a big roast dinner, the last thing you want to do is go out, you just want to veg on the sofa. Yeah, we know it's not good for.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

No, just get up and clear the dishes. Uh don't sit. Yeah, just move. Just move.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Brilliant. There you go, guys. That's week's this week's lesson of the day. Uh or lesson of the week, I should say, is go for a walk after you had something to eat.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Alright, thanks for joining us today. Bye bye. Thank you. Thanks, Maxine. I love the way you explain things because they're so simple yet so easy to forget. Uh, we spend so much time trying to find the latest well-being trend, don't we? So sometimes the answer is simply just go outside, move your body, breathe in some fresh air, have a conversation, or even enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Walking really is one of the best forms of medicine, and thankfully, it's completely free. I've just realised I've actually only done one walk this week, and Pete wasn't on that walk. So the um recording that I've got is actually from childhood memories, which we were talking about, and the question, the round-robbing question was uh, what decade do you think was the best for having the best childhood? And it actually got really um really interesting. We've got a mix of ages as well in the group. So have a listen to this.

SPEAKER_06 17:04

Yeah, actually okay with you.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Do you know that opposed fights and interesting bomb fights in the trees, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

I'm recording that, isn't that everyone everyone alright with that? Okay, and then I'll chop it up if I need to. So where should we go? We'll go.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, Julie Finn, and I was a child in the 50s and 60s, and I think I had an idyllic child. And to be honest, I still live much the same person who did that.

SPEAKER_06 17:39

Um thinking about it. Some people might think that's good. Yeah, um I grew up.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

When you were growing up, was it just a small one having mobile phones?

SPEAKER_07 18:45

It's just a small time having mobile phone.

SPEAKER_04 19:12

So Julia from Bleesworth and yeah, I'm a 70s, eighties kid, um live my life outdoors, making dens, and yeah. So when I look back, I remember the summer of 76.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

70s and 80s.

SPEAKER_06 19:32

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_08 19:33

Pete from Daventry with Pete from Daventry with Tess and Tony. Um the same really just life when you grew up was so simpler. I was in pets at home the other day, and they've got everything. They've got everything you want, and ten times the amount that you you actually don't want. When I was a kid, you used to have a little pet shop on the corner, and they still had everything.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 19:53

And I'd yeah, I'd I'd save I'd save my pocket money up, and I went into the bloke and I says, I'd like a pet wasp, please. And the bloke says, We don't sell wasps. I says, Well, you've got one in the window.

SPEAKER_05 20:07

We've got a pony going on a walk.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

So our round robin is rudely interrupted by a pony on a walk. And this is like the smallest pony ever.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Oh, so I apologize to P for not letting him finish his round robin question, but there was this woman that literally walked past us with like a miniature Shetland pony, if you can get miniature Shetland ponies, but it was like this dinkiest thing, it was only about as big as one of the dogs, uh, and it was a complete distraction. And um, yeah, she was a bit strange. She didn't have she had her headphones on and just didn't give us any eye contact or anything. And we were all saying, Can we take a photo of your Shetland pony? But she just didn't, so we just let her carry on. Anyway, I'm waffling, so let's crack on and I'll talk about what's coming up next week. So summer clearly hasn't finished with us yet. It just looks like we'll be heading for another heat wave back up in the 30s in midweek. As always, keep a Clito on the for Clito eye on a close eye on the forecast. Get your words out, Julia. Uh, if it becomes too hot and then we'll make sensible changes, I will, I promise, I will put everybody that's booked on a walk into a WhatsApp group and we'll do it that way. There's a bit of a disaster this week where I just emailed everyone and not everyone got the message, so I won't be doing that. But I say weather permitting, there's plenty happening next week. So as I say, we've got the normal morning walks, we've got evening walks, the cycling is in the devantry this week. A couple of breakfast walks at the end of the end of the week, because we've got Wern Bay sort of rugby way another Milton Keynes way. So do have a look at the website, get it yourself booked in. Okay dokie. So we're now on to the mystery sound. I love receiving these little voice notes. From you. So here's one from Hazel, uh, and see if she can guess who the mystery sound was, who the voice was last week. Over to you, Hazel.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Hi, Jake Walks. I think your cocktail monster is Annette Cunningham. Hope you're having a great weekend. Bye.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

So believe it or not, I've had three or four people message me all with the wrong um person's name. So I thought I'd rerun the mystery sound this week. So have a listen, and if you know who it is, then please send me a voice note. Um it's not Annette Cunningham uh and it's not Sue Phillips or Phyllis. So if it's neither of those two. So if you know who it is, send it through. Okay. Alright, so I value your time as well. So I've just realised that I'm way over my 20 minutes, which is my goal really to keep these podcasts too. So I'm just gonna round it up with a little note to say, Don't forget to take care of your body. It's the only place you live in. I know it's such a simple quote, but it's one that's worth carrying with us this week. Um yeah, that what does that look like to you? Whatever it looks like, I hope you just take a little bit of time for yourself this week. As I promised, I'm gonna end this week's podcast with some sound bath music, uh, and I'll fade it out at the end. But overall, I I just think have a fantastic life, look after each other, uh, keep exploring, keep making memories, and remember live your best life. Alright, take care, see you later, bye bye, take care.

unknown 24:04

Okay, bye bye.