I used the Wheat Belly books for recipes on how to make food that isn't trying to kill me.

I decided to do a couple of desserts first. 

They're made with coconut, seeds, nuts, monk fruit sweetener and other harmless good ingredients. 

There's no sugar, no grains, no wheat flour. 

The donuts look like donuts, but they don't taste like donuts. They're much yummier. And they're filling. Unlike wheat flour donuts that somehow never fill you up. The wheat makes you want more, more, more.

The chocolate bars look more like brownies than chocolate bars. They taste like brownies too, but more chocolatey. 

Theoretically, I could just eat these two foods and maybe a few vitamins and I'd have all the nutrition I need to live a healthy life. 

But it would get boring after a while, which is why I'll be making more snacks and meals from the Wheat Belly books. Each one has piles of recipes. I've compiled more than 100 snack/candy/dessert recipes already. 

There's dozens of crock pot recipes...all of which are designed to make you healthier and stronger, not weaker and fatter.

All sorts of meals, entrees, snacks, smoothies, and other good foods are in the books authored by William Davis. They're all recipes that have ingredients that aren't trying to kill you. The ingredients will make your life better. And in these recipes, they taste great.

I'll say this about giving up wheat and gluten. I used to have a very sore back and sore knees. When I gave up wheat, my chronic back pain and chronic knee pain went away. 

Even though my weight went up and down over the past 8 years, my chronic back and knee pain never came back. I'm still wheat & gluten free.

There's no doubt in my mind that wheat and gluten are poisons for me.

I never did get tested to see if I have celiac disease. Taking a test is not the point. 

The point is, as soon as I stopped eating wheat and gluten containing foods, I started feeling better.

This may be related to my genetics. I'm Mi'kmaq and our people didn't eat wheat in pre-colonial times. Our guts aren't accustomed to this type of food. The same goes for all Indigenous people in North and South America. Wheat is not our food. Bannock is not our food.

Going wheat and gluten free is part of the Warrior Bootcamp. Doing this will most likely provide the biggest benefit. Doing this will make every other part of Warrior Bootcamp easier to accomplish. 

The guy who convinced me to go Wheat & Gluten free is in the video connected to this post. 

The thing is, we all pretty much already know how to do this. We've read the articles. We've heard the pundits. We've watched the YouTube videos. We've read the books. 

There's no mystery on how we can all stop carrying so much extra fat.

Or is there?

I learned how to stop carrying extra fat about 8 years ago. I found a plan and I dropped the weight. I had more energy. I felt better. My brain fog disappeared. I was down from 275 to 210 pounds. 

I learned this when I read the Wheat Belly book and started watching Dr. William Davis on YouTube. 

I had bad knees at the time and my back was always sore. I was miserable carrying all that extra fat.

The first thing I did was stop eating anything with wheat and gluten. 

It's not nearly as difficult as you would think. Instead of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I'd put the peanut butter and jelly in a little bowl and eat it like that without the bread. 

Eating a cheeseburger without the bread is also a piece of cake. Having eggs and sausage in the morning without toast is not that difficult. If there's nobody around, you can lick the yolk off the plate. I lick the plate even if there are other people around. 

After a while, I lost a fair bit of weight. I avoided sugar as much as possible. No more Coca Cola (my favourite drink in the world). I don't drink alcohol, so that wasn't a problem. 

I could go out in the summer and get 25,000 steps in mowing the lawn. Life was good and it was getting better with this wheat-free way of eating.

I wasn't counting calories. I simply ate when I was hungry and avoided junk. 

But, over the past few years, I got lazy. I still don't eat wheat. But I got back into my Coca Cola habit and let quite a bit more sugar get into my system. 

I also was eating quite a few bad fats, as my peanut butter had hydrogenated oils in it. 

And the potato chips. I love potato chips. Especially Kirkland Kettle Chips. 

So, I started adding the pounds, bit by bit. 

But it didn't get bad until the year my father had cancer. I helped out in any way I could. I was the guy who picked him up out of bed to his wheel chair and lifted him from the chair into the car when we needed to visit his doctors. 

About halfway through June, something happened to me. I was suddenly out of breath while hardly doing any work. My heart started occassionally skipping beats.

I don't know what happened. Covid was here, so maybe I got some Covid. I never felt like I had a cold or the flu, so I'm not sure I got Covid at that time. 

Another possibility was that Dad's chemo was sweating through his skin and onto mine. Chemo is nasty stuff. It's primary purpose is to kill cells in the body. It does sometimes leave the body through sweat. I was lifting Dad several times a day in May, June, July, and August. It was a warm summer and he'd often be shirtless and sweaty and I'd only have a t-shirt. My bare arms were in contact with the sweaty skin of a chemo patient. I'm not saying that's what happened to me, but it's a possibility and the timing's right. 

I was still smoking at the time too. Not a lot. A pack usually lasted 3 days. But the combined stress of taking care of my sick Dad and smoking could have triggered my weakened condition.

Either way, I lost about 50% of my ability to get around and do stuff that summer. And I never got it back.

My appetite didn't drop, but my ability to burn off calories was cut in half. 

So I gained weight again, right up to the 265 I was right before getting Covid on June 6 of this year (2023). 

There was no doubt that I had Covid. There are 3 people in this house and we all tested positive for Covid. It was brutal. High fevers, hallucinations, zero energy, massive fatigue. Coughing, coughing, coughing. It's July 11 now (5 weeks later) and I'm still tired, weak, and coughing. I'm as tired and weak as I've ever been in my life. I'm essentially starting from zero. I gotta get lighter. I gotta get more energy. I gotta get better. 

So, here we are. I know how to eat. I know how to get active. I know how to live better. I know how to get better. I just have to start doing it. And so do you.

Let's start getting back into Warrior Shape.

I'm going to completely change the focus of this website. I'm no longer going to share links to news of interest to Indigenous people of North America. While I think that activity was interesting, I think there's a much more important subject to cover that affects North American Indigenous people.

Far too many of us carry far too much fat.

I just went through a really tough bout of Covid. 

It was tough because I was carrying about 35 kilograms (85 pounds) of extra fat on my body. My system was all messed up before I caught Covid and it was really bad once Covid moved into my body.

Instead of the normal 2 weeks that a less obese person would have endured with Covid, all the extra fat I carry helped stretched it out to about 5 weeks. There were a few nights when I didn't think I'd see the next day. Hallucinations, 45 minute coughing fits, high fevers, zero energy. 

Even after 5 weeks, I'm not completely over Covid. Yes, I can now stay awake all day, but my heart is different. I have hardly any energy. It's all I can do to take the dog out for a walk 5 times a day.

Before I caught Covid, I was already going downhill, health-wise. I couldn't walk as far without getting out of breath. My heart wasn't beating smoothly. Sometimes, I'd get 5 beats, then a skipped beat, then 5 beats. 

I'm 58 years old, and I weigh 250 pounds (114 kilos). I drag significant amounts of fat around all the time. On my original Indian Status Card that I received when I was 24 years old, I weighed 165 pounds (75 kilos). I was "Strong Like Bull" back then even at that seemingly light weight.

I would guess that I'm very, very lucky to have survived Covid with that much fat on me. Covid kills people who have lots of fat much more than it does lean people. Obesity is one of the leading causes of death for those who contract Covid.

When I look at pictures and videos in the news about people in "Indian Country", I see that my obesity is not the exception, but the rule. So many of us are carrying so much excess fat. It's slowing us down. It's making us weaker. It's making us sicker. We can't be very good Warriors if we run out of breath after jogging 100 feet.

What's Next?

Since I managed to make it through my Covid experience, I'm determined to make sure I don't have to suffer like that ever again. 

I'm going to change the way I eat. 

I'm going to change the way I live.

I'm going to change.

Stay tuned. I'm going to share the changes with you on this website. 

We need to all get into Warrior shape in order to succeed in all the battles we face ahead.