The Sevan Podcast - #335 - Dr. Robert A. Boyer II

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

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Bam, we're live. That's the sound of a 360-degree barbell brush by Hybrid Athletics. Roger, where are you? Where are you, Roger? Good morning, guys. Pretty cool show today. Two of my favorite topics. Dudu has taken his life seriously and taken accountability and transformation to the next level Dr. Roger Boyer.

Wow, it feels like I have cotton mouth. I don't even smoke weed. What's going on? Yesterday was my birthday. I had, uh, yeah, yeah. Not good. Not good. I mean, I had a lot of friends over just kind of impromptu. I think, I think I told you guys the story of what happened. A friend of mine had ordered a caterer for a huge party he was supposed to have Monday night. caterer for a huge party he was supposed to have monday night uh he then decided he wasn't going to catering service and so then what ended up happening was i got the catering service for free at my house on wednesday i had a big party and i had cheesecake last night i don't think i've had cheesecake in 20 years and And I feel like shit, to be honest.

Good morning. Hey, good morning. How are you, Siobhan? Oh, good. Yeah, that's much better. When you first came on, it sounded like you were in a grinder. Much better. Yeah, we're enjoying the local coffee shop this morning.

So great to see you. I love it. Hey, this is probably one of my, these are my two favorite topics. Just what you've done with your life and just grabbing a hold of your life and taking charge and changing your life. And then the CrossFit Level 1. So, thanks for coming on. I've been excited about this all week. I've been telling my wife, I'm like, oh, I love these kind of shows.

I love these kind of shows. Because they're easy. Yeah, it's been an amazing journey you know especially when it comes to you know the choices that we have to make and trying times especially with covid it's it's always nice to be able to have an opportunity to share good stories yeah i appreciate you guys allowing allowing me the time to share with you guys this morning so dude it's it's it's um man going to say, I hope, but I know this is going to affect a lot of people's lives. There's a lot of people who want to hear these stories because, um, it, you know, when you have things that seem unsurmountable and you see someone do it first,

I mean, what they, what's the example people always use the four minute mile, right? No one could break the four minute mile. One guy broke it. And then within a couple months, you know, all sorts of dudes were breaking it. So what you've done and what we're about to talk about today, I think is going to change a lot of people's lives. Well, I don't know. I think, you know, 22.2 is a little bit difficult to go up and down that ladder. So anyway, so, but one day I'll get there, I'm sure. Where, where are you? So currently right now we're traveling back to Vancouver Island. I've been over in Grand Rapids, Michigan area,

visiting my mother who is struggling with COPD. And so we're just traveling back to Vancouver Island. That's where our home is. And Vancouver Island is on the west coast of Canada, correct? Yeah, that's correct. So we live in a little town called Qualcomm Beach, which is actually just north of, about 45 minutes north of where Pat Belner trains out of CrossFit Nanaimo.

So you just take a little ferry over from Vancouver and then you're right in our backyard. So you're on the island. We are on the island. That's correct. Yeah. Who else is on the island with you? Isn't the other...

Oh, shit. I can't believe his name is slipping me. So there's Adam Davidson as well at CrossFit. Lolo is down in the Victoria area. And so that's been nice to connect with him and Michelle. So it's a great community out here. So I want you guys should come. I was out there once. Who's the old school guy? I can't believe his name is... Who's the old school guy? The redhead, hairy, real buff does like we always tease him because he has like a two hour warm up before every event.

Not too sure. Luke Parker, maybe. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Lucas Parker. Is he over there on the island? I'm not too sure. We just moved here about 14 months ago. So we're just trying to alchemy and figure out what the CrossFit scene is. And so we've tried to visit all the all the boxes here. We are new members of CrossFit Qualcomm Beach with Luke and Maggie. So it's it's been amazing to actually just see the whales in the bay every day. So I'm just happy about that. And the mountains in the back, it's beautiful. So I'm just happy about that.

And the mountains in the back, it's beautiful. So I can't pick a better place than in the traditional territory of the New Chandler Tribal Council. It's just beautiful here. So hopefully one day you'll be able to come up and enjoy it. Tell me the name of the tribe up there. So there's lots of tribes. There's uh designated first nation reserves on vancouver island uh but the tribal council that uh i'm on the territory of is called the new choneth tribal council and so it's actually headquarters out of a place called port alberni and they're represented by 14 first

nations that have been very progressive and from a political perspective, they actually submitted back in 2009, which is a big intersection with my story, a national chief called Sean Atleo, who was really progressive in, you know, building, you know, an economic base for us to be able to not only survive, but thrive. So there's a lot of history here on the island and for small, an indigenous population of about 10,000 total out of the 14 First Nations, it's pretty surmountable of what they've been able to do and it's one of the beautiful places that Tofino is in their traditional territory and that's where they have the world-class surfing every year is in the Tofino area. So you know that's something you and I have in common being

in California and being in a surfing culture. Guys come up here all the time to break big waves. Are you born and raised in the States, and now you're Canadian? Yeah, so my dad's Canadian from a little town called Blind River, Ontario, and that's where my Anishinaabeg heritage comes from. And my mom is actually from Kalamazoo, Michigan. And so I was born and raised in a little small town called Reed City, which is about an hour north of Grand Rapids.

Nishnabek in Kalamazoo. You get to say fun words. Nishnabek is a tribe? Yeah. So we're about 1.4 to 1.7 million. I mean, ultimately, the data that's out there is pretty skewed because of the way that it's taken by the census. So we're a larger tribe. We're probably one of the biggest tribes that joins a border between Canada and the United States. And I think the other thing that's significant about us as being Anishinaabeg or Ojibwe or Chippewa is also what we're called, is the abilities around the Jay Treaty. So we signed a Jay Treaty back in 1492 and 1512 that really said that we don't have any borders, so we can freely come and go between the countries. Wait, you got to bear with me here a second.

I got to paint just some really ignorant shit, but I got to bear with me here a second i got to paint some yeah just some really ignorant shit but but i got to do it so yeah there's these people called the nishnabic and the chippewa they're a uh indigenous and i guess by indigenous that means they were the people who were in um on the land before the europeans came and their home is uh basically where the border, where the imaginary border is between Canada and the United States. Imaginary, I guess you could also call it legal. And in what section of on the west, in the middle or on the east or that entire from from coast to coast, from Atlantic to Pacific? Where is there like, I guess you would say home? Yeah, so great question, Savant.

So the Anishinaabeg people are actually a part of the Three Fire Confederacy. So the landmass that we occupy is actually Ontario, Manitoba, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, lower parts of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and then also in Quebec. So we have a vast land mass to be able to occupy. And prior to the newcomers coming or colonization, we actually freely went back and forth in the waters of the Great Lakes and did trade amongst each other. So this is our traditional territory. And in Michigan alone, where I'm originally from, there are 11 First Nation reserves that represent the Michigan Intertribal Council.

And they're Anishinaabek. And there's not a CrossFit affiliate on any of them. Wow. Okay. And we will get to that. I just want to talk about the history a little bit more. So is your dad, your dad is Anishinaabek? Uh-oh, I lost your audio, brother. Roger a Nishnabic.

Uh-oh, I lost your audio, brother. Roger, I can't hear you. Maybe you got muted. No? No, sir. Maybe the Bluetooth disconnected. Good time for a coffee break. Holy cow, it is St. Patrick's Day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. While Roger here figures out his audio, I got to say, I had cheesecake last night, and I think it disrupted my sleep severely, severely. I feel like I was just watching my brain the whole night, and then it was just morning. No, sir. You still look good. Your camera works great, but no, no, here, here. Can you hear me? Oh, that's a trip. You want to log out and log back in?

That can't hurt. We give it just a complete reboot. I love all these words. Nishnabik, Chippewa, Kalamazoo. What was the other one? It was another one. It was good. It was mellow.

I'm fitty. I'm fitty. But I had two pineapple chili kombuchas, which is crazy for me, and a piece of cheesecake. Oh, yeah. I hear you. Savant, can you hear me? Yes, yes. I hope everyone got to take a pee break.

Wonderful. And happy St. Patrick's day to you guys. Yeah. Thank you. I can't even believe it's St. Patrick's day. I don't even know what that means, but I think you're just supposed to wear green. I got my green on. Yeah. I'm probably going to get in trouble for that. There's probably some reason you're not supposed to celebrate St. Patrick's day. Especially in camel, you know, everything about being PC these days. Yes.

It was funny. Last night, I had some guests over at my house, and my guests taught my kids how to make a – oh, that's why they were doing that. I didn't realize it was St. Patrick's Day. They were making leprechaun traps in the backyard to catch a leprechaun. I'm like, dude, what are we going to do with it once we catch it? And the kids are crazy. They're like, oh, we'll let it go. We'll keep it in the house. catch a leprechaun i'm like dude what are we gonna do with it once we catch it and the kids the kids are crazy they're like oh we'll let it go we'll keep it in the house

i'm like what um okay so so there's the there's the tribe now this is the part that i'm kind of i wanted to dig into just really quick i know i'm falling into these you said that there was a treaty signed in 1492 or 1512 i didn't even know people signed treaties back then and who is the treaty with so the treaty is actually with the the american government that allowed for us as anishinabek to freely pass between canada and the u.s as they were starting to fulfill their manifest destiny protocol and and we can get into that later at a different time. But the idea that – There was a US government in 1492. Isn't that when Mr. Columbus came over? Isn't that the saying?

1492 sailed the ocean blue or something? Who did they sign the government with? It was the early signing of the treaties with the Michigan government at the time because if you remember in in, uh, if we, if we move, I don't remember, I don't know shit. So, yeah. So the, so the treaty that I'm actually referring to, I just, I just fact checked it. It's around, sorry, it's around 1827 is when that J treaty was signed. Okay. So it was after the actual, the Anishinaabek were recruited to fight in the, the war of 1812. So that particular war after that there was a a peace treaty that was signed that allowed for us to have frequent access between the two countries

okay because we were allies on both sides of that war isn't it so good to be alive now where we're in 2022 where we're civilized and we would never fight with other human beings or hurt them or kill them these people i don't know that that happens all the time so what are you talking about oh yeah shit you're right darn it it's still happening to this day darn it darn it yeah man mankind i mean we just recently we just recently found out that that we had unmarked graves in all of our Indian residential schools. So I'm sure if you want to open up that, that bag of tricks today. So I know it's, it's, it is, it is absolutely nuts.

It is absolutely nuts. Okay. So, so when you were raised by your dad, I'm assuming I'm making that assumption, correct me if I'm wrong, but was that a big part of your upbringing, talking about your history, who you are as a person, who your people are on the Anishinaabeg side? Yeah, so interestingly enough, it was something that we had partaken in, like the powwows that were around the community, we the powwow, would attend ceremonies. But it wasn't, if you remember some history, again, you know, my dad was raised in a time that it wasn't cool to be Indigenous. It wasn't the fad and cool thing to do. And so my dad actually carried a lot of shame with him around being Indigenous because of some of the socio political issues of the day and really focusing on unemployment was huge on our First Nations back in the 1950s and 60s when my dad was trying to figure out who he was as a young individual. And so he actually had to leave the community in order to find employment.

And so that was a part of his shame background where he wasn't actually proud to be Indigenous. his shame background where he wasn't actually proud to be Indigenous. And so it wasn't until later in life that we actually realized what it meant to be Anishinaabek, to be part of a community, to have that connection, to understand our ceremonies. And also because of colonization, that information is not even to this day readily available for most of us. What information? even to this day, readily available for most of us. What information? Well, information about culture, information about, you know,

like you said, historical information about Indian residential schools, you know, about how our people were acculturated, assimilated, all of the, even the ideas around treaty relationships and how do we live well in these treaty relationships. And so, again, I didn't learn any of that stuff until way later in life, you know, until I went and became educated and, and started to educate myself because it just wasn't something that we talked around around the table. So.

It's a, it's a trip. It's a trip people's heritage. I had this lady on here the other day. She holds like all these world records for eating. Her name is, um, Leah shut Kiever. She lives in, um,

uh, in the UK, beautiful woman, beautiful woman. And she holds all these crazy records, uh, Roger, like,

um, uh, a hot dog eating biggest bowl of cereal eating. Uh, she just can swallow eggs whole. She does all this cool, crazy shit. I mean, same body. She's a fitness girl.

She does just, it's a trip. But anyway, during the conversation, I'm like, oh, you're a Jew. And I saw her whole face panic. And I'm like, what? What's up? And she's like, oh, I don't really tell anyone that. Yeah, I am Jewish. Or like, you know, I don't really tell anyone that. Yeah, I am Jewish. Or like – I didn't have it too bad, but like I went to a school where everyone was probably Irish and some sort of descent like that, and it was weird being Armenian.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I totally understand that. Or like how people who are from Iran or Iraq and – because like you go to – we go to a country with it. We go to war with the country back to the fighting thing. We go to a war with the country, like Iraq. And then all the citizens in this country who are, you know, Iraqi or Iranian start to feel like shit. Right. Cause everyone's like, it's like, it's like after nine 11, uh, you go to the airport and you get on the plane and there's a dude with a turbine getting on a plane and you're like, you know, cause the last, the last image you saw of a guy with a turbine on was blowing shit up.

It's tough. And I think like us, every time Thanksgiving comes around, we all get traumatized because the stories are retold about, you know, how our kids were taken away from us and put into Indian residential schools. And then also we get re-traumatized by defranchisement and what happened, you know, in our country, both that, that's a shared history between Canada and the United States. So for us, tell me about Thanksgiving. I'd never heard that. Tell me about Thanksgiving. Yeah. So the, the historical story has always been, you know,

great Christopher Columbus came and, you know, came, came to the States in 1492 and, you know, the pilgrims and the Indians, they all sat together and they had this great feast called Thanksgiving. But the reality is, is if you read the historical documents, you know, some from some of the anthropologists and especially those wonderful Catholics out there who I love the most because they were great historians. Like if you read the Jesuit relations, you'll read some of the stories about what actually happened on some of those encounters. And in particular, most of the newcomers who first came, especially in those times and as well as in Toronto, when they came, they were actually full of sickness

and they were full of starvation because they'd been on the boats for so long. And so us as Indigenous people and my ancestors, you know, actually aided them and put them back to wellness and back to health and that's why they were able to send back the people back to the queen to be able to tell them about how amazing the people were and how amazing the land was and then the story abruptly changed and so you know coming back and and feeling as though that this was divine and god

had given them this land and all of a sudden now it's theirs. And so then my people are the ones that had to pay for that. And Thanksgiving, where on one hand, I guess you could say in American culture, it's a celebration. And in the indigenous culture, it's a moment of mourning. It is. It's almost, yeah, because around that day in in the united states it's usually uh the third week of november and in canada it's the second week of october so around that time we also share a very sacred day as the initial that called the day of the dead and so it's this idea around you know on uh you know honoring our our people that have gone past uh and telling the stories and it always reminds like said, that day morning of saying, hey, this is the truth.

This is the history. And then how do we reconcile around it? So, man, and it's not even it's crazy because it's not even that long ago. I mean, going back to 1492 is but going back to 1827 is not. Yeah. And just, you know, for the viewers, I think historically they need to understand that like Canada hasn't even become a country until 1852. So we didn't sign the Huron-Robinson Treaty with Canada, my own people, my own tribe being Mississauga First Nation. We didn't sign that

Huron-Robinson Treaty until 1852. And so this isn't like something that happened hundreds of hundreds of years ago. This is like what happened yesterday. And in Canada with the Kamloops Indian Residential School, that Indian Residential School didn't close until 1997-98. going to day school and being acculturated and assimilated and really ripped of their cultural identity. So again, it's telling the truth. And that's why I really appreciate the Canadian stance and the leaders here in Canada who have actually done the investments of looking at what does it mean to live in a culturally safe and sensitive way and actually invested resources in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Justice Sinclair. So it's an amazing work that we're trying to do to be able to, you know, almost repatriate our history and our culture and identity and our ceremonies and all that stuff. So it's

amazing to be able to do that here in Canada. I want to go back to 2009, but if we have time, I'd like to come back and visit this and talk about this because it's interesting because I was – I'm Armenian on both sides. And I was raised with a strong, strong narrative around the Armenian genocide because basically anyone who's Armenian who's alive in the United States is – there's a pretty significant argument that they're so lucky to be alive. United States is there's a pretty significant argument that they're so lucky to be alive. Millions of Armenians were killed and they were basically just fleeing in 1915 from that sort of Armenia-Turkish region and they scattered to the wind, right? And I go back in, so April 15th and we have all these days now, you know, since the day I was born to remember the genocide and there's this pounding in and there's this like, why doesn't the Turkish government recognize it? And there's just all of this stuff around this really sad day, right? These sad years, these killings, these escapings.

I mean, shit. I mean, I mean, my, my family has a very strong history with it. My, um, my, uh, great grandparents and grandparents were moved to a 10 by 10 square foot, uh, concrete hut where my dad was raised with his 10 brothers and sisters um in lebanon right no running water no electricity no bathrooms none of that shit and that's how my dad was brought up but but i'd like to go back and and hopefully if we have time be like hey or maybe it's a different show. What are the implications of sharing that with the next generation in a way that makes them victims instead of – well, I don't know what the other option is, right? Well, I think victors versus victims, right? Because victimization is reliving and staying in that position. And I hope our indigenous people, my kids – I mean you've seen beautiful pictures of my kids.

Yes. Congratulations, by the way you got a posse yeah so i mean ultimately the idea is that the next generation is always better and more prepared than we were right and so the idea is to really move from that victimization and find the healing and again like i said uh i know we're crossfit focused but it's you know it's about finding our culture and our space and place within the world. So I think that would be a great show. I feel like I was not intentionally, but through the stories, I was taught to not like Turkish people. And I don't think that component of it helped me at all.

Now I'm 49. You know what I mean? So I wish the history could have been taught in a way. Anyway, maybe it's different the way you were brought up too. But there needs to be a way that it's taught to where I don't want my kids to know the history. I don't want them to carry the baggage. Yeah, and I totally agree with you. And I think for me and my background, the way we were raised, we were raised Roman Catholic by the victimizer.

So ultimately, I'm carrying this burden of this cross that actually was used as a weapon to actually kill my people. And I'm not talking my people as in First Nations across Canada and the U.S. I'm talking about my direct ancestors at the Spanish Indian Residential School in Spanish, Ontario. Like this is a, this is something that actually is directly close to the nucleus of my home and my narrative as a human being. And so I think, you know, when it comes to that, you carry that and you go through that. I think it's the stages of grief where you go through that and you, you have that hatred and you're

like at the end of the day and being Indigenous i experience racism on the daily in very different ways and i totally savant to be honest with you was blind blindsided and blind of it for for a long long time you know until i sat in moose jaw saskatchewan and sat there for 97 minutes waiting to get a a coffee and a and a menu to be able to order and people were like well they just don't treat indians that way so how did they how did they know how did they how do they know uh-oh i lost you wait wait this is the good part of the story shit if you have to log in and log out again do it awesome feel free feel free yeah do it Awesome. Feel free. Yeah, do it.

We'll get to the bottom of this. How do they know? Do you guys know that I'm Armenian? Could you look at me and tell that I'm Armenian? Let me show a little. How do they know that he is? We'll get to this. Is that better? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You da man. Thank you. Perfect. Sorry about that. How do they know, like I know you're not Chinese. Yeah, totally. How do they know that you're a Anishinaabeg and that you need to wait 97 minutes for your coffee? Well, and ultimately where we were in Moose Jaw, the idea is that that particular establishment,

when I walked in at that time, I was 400 pounds. I had braids, you know, down to the back, you know, and I looked Indigenous. I looked Native. I looked Indian, right? And so ultimately me and my, at that time, my five kids walk in and they all, as you can tell, beautiful, you know, Pocahontas looking, you know, Indian girls sitting around waiting to be served. It just sparked into them a prejudice that they felt like they needed to treat us differently. So, I mean, ultimately, I never actually entered into the conversation like I have in the past of asking them, you know, why did we have to wait or why did we have to experience that? But in that particular situation, I'm not sure how they knew. All I knew is that I had to wait

a lot extra time to be served than than not. So, yeah. So you can tell we're all in there. So look at that posse. That's so good. Sorry, I shouldn't say happy birthday up there. What's going on here? Yeah, that's great. Oh, my goodness. So those are my four beautiful daughters, Harmony, Emily, Sophia, and Hayden. And ultimately, when we walk in, we are the boy or brood. Or as we're known as the Makwa clan. So we're the bear clan.

What's the age range? So Harmony just turned 13. Emily will turn 12 at the end of this month sofia is uh 9 and hayden is 10 and then we have an older daughter who's 16 natalie so wow i'm i'm impressed you can um i'm impressed you can remember do you know all their birthdays too can you do you remember all that stuff? Yeah, well, it's just because we just went through it. So the blessing about having them all when we did is that there, we have three birthdays in February, one in January and one in March.

So we get them all over and done with from January to March. Lickety split. You know, I was in a, um, um, I was in a meeting one time with my wife and with a family friend on her side who's the vice president of a large bank chain in Southern California. And we were sitting there talking, and we're discussing our finances, and she was giving us advice on where to invest in the future. And it came up that her bank, the branches of her bank that she was in charge of this huge swath of branches and that they didn't lend money to Armenians. Now there's like a million, there's over a million Armenians in, in, in Los Angeles. It's the largest, you know, congregation of Armenians outside of Armenia. And she basically said, if they see an IAN or a YAN on the, on um last name that they'll be like oh and um

we have a perfect bank for you and they and they send you to a bank outside of the district and i said and i and i knew the answer to this and she said why i said why and she said because the armenians down there don't have a good reputation for paying back their loans and it's um you know i didn't i didn't fucking like it i didn't but it's it's interesting it's um I didn't fucking like it. I didn't. But it's interesting. This is just – this is seven, eight years ago. And yeah, there's people out there with strong opinions and yeah.

I don't know any – I never – I don't know any indigenous people really. Like I'm trying to think like – Well, you know me now, Siobhan. Yeah, I do know you. But I'm trying to think like did I ever roll with indigenous kids like in in elementary school did i know any or high school i i looked at the demographics for santa cruz one time and it was like 1.4 percent um i forget what it was i thought maybe it said native american yeah well you might know you might know lots of them but they just don't self-identify because again they've gone through that genocide and that that bad history that they don't want to relate to

to all that or deal with that right so ultimately you may have ran or you know i'm sure that you've thrown down with lots of indigenous people they've just not disclosed that hey you know i'm happy to be indigenous i'm proud to be Indigenous, right? Right, right. Just like when I go to the banks in LA, I tell everyone I'm Japanese. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know just even recently with the articles that came out last summer, you know, there's a huge dysphoria of a Navajo presence in the LA area. Like it's, it's amazing. A lot of people have moved from, you know, the reservation on the Navajo reserve and moved into LA just because of the proximity. Hey dude, if you, I mean, if I had Ed Calderon on, uh, and I had, I've had Jorge Ventura on both,

um, uh, I think first generation, um think, first generation from south of the border. And I brought this up to both of them. Like what are Mexicans? I mean 300 years ago, there were no fucking Mexicans I'm guessing. It was – there were indigenous people who were basically raped by the – and I'm being a little melodramatic, but maybe not. the um uh and i'm being a little melodramatic but i maybe maybe not raped by um explorers right who came on boats and then they call now they call that mix that hybrid of people mexicans and they're the poster children for catholicism i mean it's fucking quite the um transformation and i'm being really nice using that word in in three or four hundred years of a giant swath of people. Right. Well, and I think that's the case is in most of our indigenous heritage is because of globalization and the move to find jobs and move off of our territory that was actually given to us know, back into our territory after it was stolen from us, you know, to be able to find employment and to survive, that's a struggle for most of us.

You mean if you want to stay near home? Yeah, if you want to stay home near culture or even, you know, being able to focus to have that connection, because for us, we are so connected to our families. We're so connected to, you know know the land means significant amounts to us because that's where our life is that's where our stories come from uh the connection of the places i mean the community that i uh came from you know it's the in the language it's called uh bambawabka and it's because it's where the the waters uh come into the bay in a particular manner like it's gleasoning it's beautiful right off the mississauga river and so there's a lot of connection in the stories that happen there uh with our own people and

traditional um our our ontological or the way that we know comes from that land and the teachings of creation so so yeah so we want to stay close. We want to stay connected, unfortunately, you know, because of the situations of unemployment and being forced on lands that aren't prosperous, we've got to move in and globalize and somewhat assimilate. So, however, the smartness about one of our Anishinaabek leaders, which is the Shinwalk vision vision is living biculturally. And I think that's where the strength comes in is that we need to be able to

learn to live in both cultures without losing ourselves. So I think you might, you might have the same struggle. Yeah. It's interesting. I just started eating. I just started eating raw meat again and I can't believe it, but I grew up eating raw meat. It was my favorite dish my grandmother made, and if it wasn't for these wackadoodles on Instagram who reintroduced me to it, I would have just thought it was just some crazy thing that people were doing. But I was raised eating raw meat.

It was like one of the finest delicacies of my Armenian diet, and it's like, holy shit. How could I forget that? Well, it's because you weren't raised on it. Well, no, but that's what I mean. I was raised. I was raised on it. But even in one like I'm telling you, like up until my grandmother passed away when I was, I don't know, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old. I can't even remember my whenever I'd go to my grandmother's house, which was at least once a week.

She'd make me this raw meat dish. And then now I'm 50 and I forgot about it. And I see these wackadoodles eating raw meat on Instagram. Like, oh, I'm going to try that. And I take a few bites and i'm like what wait this isn't wackadoodle shit my i grew up eating raw meat and so it's just it's great i'm i'm agreeing with you that like yeah i can't it was a mistake to forget like i needed to i needed to assimilate the two i needed to and you know i've been looking a lot at russian history lately and and obviously armenia is like this too and i'm sure it's like this on on on the reservations and on the indigenous

lands that um there's population decline like i was noticing russia's population last 10 years gone down that's not that's not a good sign for a country armenia's population going down and you have to think that it's the smart people who are living. And I use smart or leaving. I have to I use that in quotes. But right there searching. It's the adventurous, smart people who are searching for a better life. And I use these terms very loosely. But but I'm guessing the your communities have the same issue, right? Well, Siobhan, actually, the interesting part is, is that because of people getting reconnected with the community and, you know, going back to the repatriation

of our children back to the communities from the 60s scoop and a whole other amount of tragedies that happened, people are actually moving back to the reserves, moving back to the reservations to be able to connect with the people and connect with the family. And so here's something that's really an anomaly that I still haven't figured out to this day, that the indigenous population in Canada is the largest growing population in Canada right now, that we are on the growth spurts and moving fastly and growing. And I don't know what the rates are, but I think it's at least almost, if it's not one and a half,

it's almost double the amount of the Canadian average. So we are the largest population, like largest growth population. That's cool. Wow, congratulations. I'm glad I was wrong about that. So you just said the 60s scoop. And so on this marvelous thing called the internet, I looked it up really quick.

The 60s scoop was a period in which a series of policies were enacted in Canada that enabled child welfare authorities to take or scoop up indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in foster homes. Why the fuck would they do that? Because they thought it was better living. 20,000 children were taken from their parents? Yep. Well, that's nothing compared to Indian residential school where there were millions of kids that were taken and put into Indian residential schools

and never to see their parents again. So this is the Canadian concentration camps that people don't think about. Man, I just can't. I mean, when you hear that, do you kind of like... this is the Canadian concentration camps that people don't think about. Man. I just kick. I mean, when you hear that, do you kind of like, I mean, we both have kids. And so there's like that, your brain wants to play with it a little bit. Imagine someone takes my kids and then right away you're like, nah, nah, I'm not going to imagine that I'm blocked that shit out.

Well, I, I, I imagine it every day. And I think that's for me. That's why it's so important for, for the work that do, and we continue to advocate for a better life for our kids. Yeah. Okay. And I agree, and good on you. I'm assuming it probably provides great fuel, inspiration, and motivation. when I had my long, long distance run. I was totally thinking about, you know, my daughters and really trying to create fitness as a place of ceremony and a place of healing. So that's been something that I've been doing that's been helping me out.

Fitness, I like that. At Air Miles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them. How's that spicy enchilada? Very flavorful. Yodeling with them. Ooh, must be mating season.

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But I guess that's how I view it too. Ceremony and healing. It is kind of where I go when I don't feel good. I go to fitness. Even if it's just like a walk or riding a bike. But I almost always turn to it. Whether I have a cold or whatever, or I'm feeling bad or sad. Yeah. I think like even last night, you know, some of the things that I was thinking about is traditionally four is a very important number for us because four is significant and sacred to many things in our culture. And so when we look at like the four colors and we look at the four directions,

you know, through our ceremonies and through our sacred rituals, we practice different ceremonies and fours. And so it's interesting because usually we focus the first part of the ceremony on the community and on the on the nation. And the second part, we really focus on the the larger extended families of our closeness. And then the third part, we focus on our our intimate family or a nuclear family. And then at the last part, we get the chance to focus on ourselves. And so like even last night as I was running and working on my overhead squats, you know, really just thinking and being mindful through that process

is definitely something that helps me to focus and become a better human. And the four seasons. Yeah, four seasons, four directions, four elements. Oh, I like that. Massive shift in subject here so you were running and practicing overhead squats what do you do do you run with a piece of pvc and then like stop every few hundred yards and do overhead squats or how do you do that no so i've learned the best from murph from you know from dave castro and even what he what he did at the games in 2020 with Atlanta you know being able to run a mile and then do CrossFit and then run a mile and then do

CrossFit I've I've learned pretty good at how to be able to balance those bicouplets so last night what we did is we ran a mile and then at the end of the mile we did we had some PVC pipes there and just trying to practice to get that overhead position and doing more squat therapy. And then we run another mile and we do it again. So how, how old are you Roger? So I'm 43. Good job, dude. I'm just a young buck like you.

Yeah. Wow. I turned, I turned 50 yesterday. I turned 50. Uh, um, well, I couldn't believe you had Matt, you had had matt o'keefe on the other day and i thought holy smokes he's a lot older than 45 but oh but he's not right oh that's what you're saying you thought he was older yeah you know why everyone thinks he's older it's because he's so fucking mature yeah he's like he's an he's an inspiration for sure yeah everyone loves him um everyone

wants him to them he was probably 10 and people already wanted him as a grandfather you know what i mean like um he's a good guy it as you do this now we're way off subject we haven't even touched on any of the stuff i want to talk about yet um as you dig through your heritage um any signs i mean i obviously was an active people and moving was just a part of survival but any mention of fitness or health or that would just be or that would just be redundant there is there is no there was so again so i think as we start to re understand our story traditionally you know we were very fit people so mean, if you look at even some of the early drawings of the Indigenous population, you'd see like very fit, very lean, that we were subsistence

livers living off the land, you know, having to hunt and trap and fish, you know, transportation by canoe, running a lot of even Western prairies and you know having to run between the different communities so we were a very fit nation and so for me assimilated with lifestyle though right i shouldn't say just um that's like they were fit because of lifestyle there was no need to have like do you see any like mention of like exercise or did they do any throwing contests or did they have any – I guess even then it's more competitive in survival. This idea of exercise, is that just a – that would just be preposterous? tool that you used google earlier you'll see that you know like lacrosse for instance is an indigenous sport that was something we used to actually uh build competition and actually train our warriors so you know our our our our warrior societies right our our bear clan warrior societies

would actually train in sport would use sport as a part of their training techniques to be able to compete amongst different other nations so if you look at you know the way in which that we used uh games and sports and the dexterity around some of our hand games um you know was just a part of our culture and our community and it was also part of training the game's been pussified roger sorry no offense to pussy i pussy's great maybe i should use a different word but um it says that the goal post used to be 500 yards to several miles apart yeah and if you and if you were able to score if you were able to live on many of those occasions uh you know that was

also a bonus because it was, it was really about warfare and taking, you know, taking the championships away from the others, right? So in building that skill, so our warriors were, were some of the best, hence the reason why we were recruited to fight for both the, the Americans and the Canadians, right? Because they, they saw our ability and our skills to be able to do that. and the Canadians, right? Because they saw our ability and our skills to be able to do that. It says that there were matches that had up to 100,000 participants.

A small game was with 100 players. A large game was with 100,000 players. That's crazy. And it went for days, right? So it's like the CrossFit Games, indigenized. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, yeah, so the games lasted for days. Nuts. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, so the game. Oh, yeah. So the games lasted for days. Nuts. Yeah.

So, I mean, ultimately, you know, when you when you looked at the way in which that we participated, it was also for the community. So the community, it would be an aspiration for the next generation to want to acclaim those positions. Right. Those positions and roles within the community. those positions right those positions and roles within the community you you lost personally 150 you reduced your weight by 150 pounds you weighed 400 pounds did you say that yeah so medically when i when i stepped on the scale in june 17th of 2017 i stepped on the scale in my one of my primary clinics that I was overseeing at the time, and it said 398 and literally scared the shit out of me. Okay, we're trying to um

raise some money for um an l1 a scholarship program for the l1 and would you mind publishing or posting or helping us um uh push this gofundme page and i said yeah but um yeah and i would rather have like you, you come on the show and talk to me about it. Like, this is, this is so cool. This is the kind of shit I live for people going to the L one. And he said, okay. And, uh, I said, who's involved. And he said, uh, me and Chuck and Roger. And I said, who's Roger. And he goes, he's like the real, he's really the guy who knows what the fuck's going on. You need to talk to him. I was like, okay, can you give me his contact? He gave me your Instagram. Maybe he even gave me my phone number.

And I just started texting you and DMing you. And here you are a few days later. So we talked at the beginning of the story, as you saw. Well, I guess it goes back even further than that. How did you put on all this weight? So you have a deep intimacy of obviously from being born to getting this heavy to then the journey of losing all of this weight. And somehow I'm guessing that it has helped you realize your roots become more intimate and connected with your roots on a level that maybe you couldn't have done at 398 pounds.

And so just like someone, and now you want to share this with your people. Yeah, totally. And so, so can we talk about this program? And then I want to go back to the very beginning of you as a child and then build up to this again, but let's talk about this program to make sure we talk about this. What's going on here? Yeah. So the greater vision is, is we've, we've started as, as I've started've started to look at how we want to situate ourselves and move forward and taking this great message to our Indigenous population, you know, we really focused on the real need to build internal capacity because, again, as I walked through CrossFit gyms and was dropped in and, you know, through my journeys in Canada and the States, I didn't see a whole lot of, you know, Indigenous people or people self-identifying as being Indigenous. And then I,

I felt like, you know, I wanted to be able to, and I didn't see any affiliates, to be honest, that were on the reserves. And so for me, I thought, you know, the best way to bring good news is through education. And so as a part of that, you know, my wife and I, we signed up for our level one. And Siobhan, I got to tell you, it's the hardest course. I mean, I've done, I've done a biochemistry undergrad, I've done a biochemistry graduate, and I've done my PhD because I'm not a real doctor, as everybody reminds me. And I found the level one, the CrossFit level one, the hardest damn course that I had taken. And I failed it twice, Savant. I failed it twice. And so for me, I felt the importance was to actually, you know, take the

beautiful message of Greg Glassman from the sickness, wellness, fitness continuum, actually to our people in a good way. And what best way to do that is through the level one. people in a good way and what best way to do that is through the level one and so in saying this i actually looked back at at the fact so i sat with chuck and pete and myself uh back in february of 2001 and we had this initial conversation about wait not february 2001 yeah yeah that's the first time we had a conversation about it holy february of first time we had a conversation about it. Holy, February of 2001? Yeah, we had a conversation about what would it look like, what would it take to be able to establish an Indigenous CrossFit Level 1. actually launching the scholarship program and then sent me the video about the scholarship program for the kids in Atlanta and that they were looking at that time to do it in Philadelphia. And I said, well, what about us?

What about us as an Indigenous population? Can we do the level one as well as can we add the scholarship program for our kids together? And so that actually inspired the development of the CrossFit Indigenous Council, which is the individuals that are walking with me through this to try to co-create what does it actually look like to have CrossFit in an indigenized way. And so this was a paramount of us being able

to launch the scholarship program, to work in partnership with CrossFit and Chuck Caswell to be able to offer not only just the level one for indigenous athletes but also the scholarship for our kids which will be the two-day event after so we're connecting both the level one capacity for anybody who's indigenous to be able to participate and to be trained by some of the best trainers in crossfit history um but also to be able to to have our kids come with us in the scholarship program and learn from the grassroots what it means to live on that continuum and to and to live well so there's this um there's this uh

phrase it's the it's the cliche phrase it's so fucking cool, though. I think maybe Gandhi popularized it or people like to attribute it to him. Be the change you want to see in the world. And you said that just now in a different way, which I really like. You wanted to build internal capacity. I think that's what you said. said and that is that is um at its essence it would be really hard to help a group of people if they were sick like ideally ideally the people you want to it's why people love working with crossfitters so much right like anytime like a group of crossfitters like signs up for a gymnastics class i remember back in the day like in 2006 or 7 like we would go to like 15 of us would go to gymnastics class and the gymnastics teacher would be like, holy cow, I've never seen students progress so fast because their GPP was so fantastic. And so you bring something like this to a group of people that makes them healthy, right. And gives them self-belief and pride and self-awareness and you're building their internal capacity. It's, um, it's taking care of you. It's taking care of

your, your, your home. Yeah. And I think it's, it falls taking care of you it's taking care of your your your home yeah and i think it's it falls back into the indigenous teaching that we make decisions based on the seven generations be you know that came but that we're also making decisions thinking about the seven generations ahead of us and it's that genitive practice of giving back and leaving the place better than we left than we found it do your kids work out with you yes yes they do so i mean if you scroll through my facebook or my my instagram page you'll see the girls they uh they love coming in the gym they love you know crossfit uh we've got two or three of them uh hayden in particular she, she sent me a message for her birthday and she actually

wanted those gym, one of those gymnastic pads where she could, you know, do handstand walks and, and, and get involved. So she's, she's kind of drinking the Kool-Aid just like me. So it's, it's a trip, isn't it? Um, last night, um, I, I don't normally drink last night. I had two drinks and a piece of cheesecake. I went way, way out. And so like at 9 o'clock at night, I went into the gym for my second workout of the day. I tried to get two in every day. And not as hard as stuff as running a mile, working on overhead squats, running a mile. But, you know, something.

And it was late, 9 or 10 at night, and my 7-year-old son comes into the garage and starts working out. Was that Avi? It was Avi. Avi, okay. comes into the garage and starts working out was that ari or it was uh avi okay and the and i'm like thinking to myself one why aren't you asleep i'm thinking in my head you know like and two why are you working out but i didn't say anything to him i wanted to give him shit and told him he had to go to school tomorrow so go to bed i didn't say anything i just kept working out for another half hour while he worked out and like um he i just bought a mace and he was in there doing over. I was on the assault bike and then using the mace.

And so I have an air runner. And so he did the air runner in the mace. And I was. Do you have an AED in your garage? No, I should. Is that in case my son has to. Just in case he's got to put the pads on you. Dude, my kids know I'm old too.

It sucks. I told the story a million times, but they had a one wheel. It's basically, do you know what that is? Yeah. They had a one wheel and I got on it about a month ago at the beach and one of my sons started crying. And I got off and I'm like, oh, you don't want me riding it? He goes, no, I'm afraid you're going to hurt yourself and die. I'm like, why would that happen? He goes, you're gonna hurt yourself and die i'm like why would

that happen he goes you're old i'm like oh shit oh i lost you i lost you i lost you i lost you i lost you i lost you roger and i are getting this down we're getting this down he knows to just log out and log in careful buddy careful what. Careful. What? With what? Oh, just with the – I know. But I haven't had cheesecake since I was a little boy. See, Savant, I got to tell you. We got to invest in better CrossFitters or better signals, one or the other. Right, right. Okay.

So let's go back to this program a little bit. So how, why, so this money for these, how old are these people that are going to go? Are they going to be under 18, this group that's going to this program? So again, the vision was that we wanted to integrate both individuals that were over 19. So as being a part of the CrossFit level one, which two days before the scholarship, and then we have the 14 to 19 year olds that are going to participate in the scholarship. So it's anybody, any age is able to do the level one, just like CrossFit has today, you can sign up for any level one, they don't discriminate. And so the only thing that we are focusing on is this is just for indigenous athletes who want to do their level one. And then the other, the other part that we felt was important. And again,

on the values that we have of, of being genitive and giving back is that people who take their level one through our indigenous program, there's an expectation that they work with us to actually fulfill CrossFit programming back in their community or like Darius, who's in that, who's in that picture there, who sits on our council, he did his level two in Ottawa and actually is doing an internship at CrossFit 819 with Cedric LaPointe. Oh, wow. Small world.

I mean, what an amazing opportunity for our Indigenous people to work with elite CrossFit coaches and athletes to go back into the gym. And I know Paul Tremblay and Pete Shaw have been very, very supportive of us actually doing the internship program as well. And so I know Kelly Morris as well is doing her internship at Orleans. And so that's also an expectation that if you come and do the level one with us, we want to stay connected with you. We want to invest in you and we want to also invest in the community so that we can continue to build CrossFit affiliates on our reserves and in our communities, both the Métis and the Inuits as well, not just the Indigenous. So this $60,000 goal, how many people would that put through the L1? Is that 60 people? No, no. So the goal is to put 20 on the East coast.

We want to have an East coast training center. And so that's where we are now in eel grounds, first nation at the pound. So CrossFit the pound with Brad McMillan. He's been a CrossFit affiliate since June of 2013. So we want that to be our East coast training center where we can train 40 people a year there. And then we want to do and support East Coast Training Center where we can train 40 people a year there. And then we want to support half of them with the scholarship, which means 20 athletes. And then we want to do a West Coast Training Center on Vancouver Island where I'm and train another 40.

So every year we want to be able to have sorry, we have a total of 40 total. So we have 20, 20 total scholarships on each coast, so 40 total scholarships at $60,000. And doesn't it cost like – oh, and that's Canadian money. Is that how much it costs, 40 scholarships in Canadian? Yeah, it costs $1,500 to pay for the L1 to CrossFit. for the L1 to CrossFit. Wow. What about, by the way, amazing. Like, obviously, you and I know this.

Anyone who goes to that, it's going to change their life. Like forever change the trajectory of their life. It's going to empower them and give them the tools to work on themselves no matter what. And as you, and I know I preach this all the time, but as you get older with the, um, the CrossFit level one, it, it, it, it changes, it ferments, it morphs. There's things that you think you're learning about fitness in there that you later on learn or about parenting or learn about, um, sleeping or learn about like how to feeling sorry for yourself. Like there's things that just keep going through kind of a maturation process, the things you learn in there. Well, I got to tell you, Savant,

the gold nugget that I love about level one, and this is something that even Steph, my wife and I were talking about this morning, is just the idea that the foundational base is built on nutrition. And I can't tell you, you know, amongst our indigenous population, how least amount of communication and education there is about nutrition and the box program and to be able to do, you know, focus on meal preps and so on and so forth like that just doesn't exist in our communities. And so the power of actually translating our relationship with food and using it as fuel

and fuel and being the foundation is just it's amazing. Like that's just an amazing education. Yeah, it's so messed up. I posted on my Instagram the other day. It's so hard for me to see a being that I have kids. They showed a child eating a bowl of cereal. It was on our food drug. It was on our, on our big, on our, our FDA posted this on their Instagram. And of course they had to turn off the comments cause they were going to get destroyed by, you know, million CrossFitters, but they, they showed a child eating a bowl of cereal on national

cereal day and they were promoting that as, as healthy living. So it's, it's, I don't know if it's like this with your people, but in the, you know, in the United States, the average citizen, not only do they not get health information, but they get the opposite. They get health information. They get sickness information in the, under the guise of health information. And it sucks. It's painful. It's painful to watch. And you learn all that at the level one. Yeah, and you learn more.

And for people like me who didn't learn it the first time, you always get a second chance to take the test again. Right, right, right. Hey, there's no shame in that. There's no shame in that. People would always ask me, should I take the test or not? I go, I don't know. I don't care. You, you, I think that there's people who probably go through that, who learn more, who do, who fail the test. I mean, yeah, it's awesome. at and that's why we got we've got people like darius there who's taken his level two and that's our goal is to build that internal capacity and just keep going and ultimately like i shared with chuck two days ago is i'd love to have our own north american indigenous seminar staff where

we're going on where we're going on the reserve we're indigenous you know training our own people through the methodologies of crossFit. That's a goal. Yeah, that seems so doable. That seems so doable. So why is there money coming from anywhere else? What is why doesn't CrossFit help a little bit with this? I mean, I know that's easy to say. I know it's not.

And I don't mean that as a dig. CrossFit is not fucking Coca-Cola. People think that it's like this huge mega corporation because it is all over the globe, but it's not. It's still relatively small. It just just has a loud voice because of people like me and you. Yeah. Is there any way they can help? I mean, I got to tell you, Chuck Caswell is the salt of CrossFit's world. And in the conversations that I've had with Chuck, I'm forever grateful for his support. And even how he's working with Nicole and the teams there at the training and development, there's a lot of support from CrossFit as a whole. And even as a sense of, I mean, they're paying to send their staff all the way to New Brunswick and into the West Coast to support us.

So they're covering the scholarship program and the cost of the scholarship part. We're asking to be an equitable player because that's the other thing we're trying to teach our people is that, you know, we don't want to live on the crowns of the crumb, you know, the crown crumbs anymore. We want to be equitable partners in this building and so that's what i want to lead from the front and show and saying hey if we can be able to get people from a grassroots level and that's what i love about crossfit is the community to be able to support and to be genitive i mean steph and i we've supported people to do their level ones and that's just as crossfitters in a non-indigenous context well what about some of us uh who are indigenous being able to support?

And so our council had decided that the GoFundMe page would be the best way to be clean and be transparent so everybody can see the money coming in and how it's being used. But it also gives opportunities for corporations. So we've got corporate sponsors being able to support as well. And so that's also really exciting news that they're willing to build capacity. So no, I mean, everybody's supporting.

I mean, as you can see, the GoFundMe has only been live for three days and there's already $725 in there. So, I mean, I have a feeling it's not going to be something that people are going to be bashful and support. I think it's just getting the word out there. And I can't tell you how appreciative we are, Savant, for you having us to be able to and support. I think it's just getting the word out there. I can't tell you how appreciative we are, Savant, for you having us to be able to

publish this. This is amazing. Oh, it's totally my pleasure. I'm stoked to be a part of it, to be honest. This is my favorite stuff to do. I'm looking for that Instagram account. I ended up at GC Indigenous. I need CF Indigenous. Yep, CF Indigenous.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I followed them the other day. Much better. I appreciate it. CF Indigenous. Yep. CF Indigenous. CF. Oh, yeah, yeah. I followed them the other day. Much better. Much better. I appreciate it. And everybody out there, CF Indigenous is the new page for us. So if you want to stay connected,

that's where we'd love to have you come and to be a part of it. We'll put both these links in the YouTube notes, CF Indigenous and a link to the GoFundMe page. Oh, there he is. There's Chuck. Yeah. So that's the poster that Brad and his team at The Pound had built.

And so the real focus is, like you can see on the two days, it's the level one that Chuck and his team are going to come and they're going to train and be a part of our Indigenous community. We're going to have ceremony and do it our way. And then the next two days is really focused on the scholarship programming bringing the youth up with us because again we want we want the youth to walk with us and be a part of what we're doing and so we're fresh we're new that instagram page is new um and so again we've we've already got a hundred people following us and so we're excited about it

what is this so that's a a conceptual partnership that we have with an amazing fitness equipment sponsor and that's Gila Fitness working with Gus and Will and so they're out of Brazil but they are indigenous from their background in Hawaii and so we've really got a value connect with them to be able to provide us with an option in our remote rural areas. So that's a gym in a box. So it's basically a CrossFit gym in a container that we'd be able to take to places like Haida Gwaii in our northern parts of Ontario and Manitoba, where we get everything in a container shipped up to people on the reserve. uh, a container shipped up to people on the reserve. And then we have the blessing of being able to put it all together and run a CrossFit programming right out of that. God, that thing

is yummy. Yeah. And it's only $60,000 Canadian. So it's pretty inexpensive as well, man. That just looking at this makes me want to work out. Don't you love that? All that stuff. It's like a play land for CrossFitters. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, so in two, in 2017, June of 2017, you get on the scale and you see 398 pounds. So that was five, four or five years ago. Almost five years. Yeah.

How do you get to 398 pounds? Stress and a bad relationship with food. When you were little, were you a big kid? No. So I was a wrestler in school and I played football in high school, in Reed City High School, and actually played college ball in Arkansas and football. And, and I didn't actually become large until I went into my graduate program at the University of Western Ontario. And it was really just a fallout of trying to figure out, you know, what am I going to do with my life? And,

you know, what am I going to do? And I'd lost my grandmother at that time. My, my grandmother had passed away. She was a woman who struggled struggled with diabetes and this is my dad's mom my indigenous my Anishinaabeg mom Martha White god rest her soul uh and so I was just struggling and so I found a lot of comfort in eating savant to be honest so and what was your go-to did you have a go-to food oh pizza and wings man pizza wings and beer are my go-to. And now even ciders was my go-to. Oh, that's interesting. You know, I have a friend who trained so fucking hard. And I was like, hey, dude, what's going on with your diet? Because he just can't get any transformation. He goes, dude, I'm addicted to ciders. And that's a really wicked combination.

I always get hate for this. And I apologize for those of you who are going to be triggered by this. But I think a lot of people who think that they are alcoholics are really addicted to the carbohydrates. And that was a part of my issue. The easiest thing for me to quit drinking wine every night is to have a little piece of fruit. As soon as I would have if i wanted a glass of wine i'd be like oh you can have it but first and i didn't normally eat fruit but first have like half an apple and i would cut like half an apple and i'd eat it and within 10 minutes my

cravings for wine went away and i'm like okay i'm craving sugar i thought and and like so it was a double double whammy right i'm getting fucking drunk but really all i want is sugar i mean they're both bad for you obviously but like so, okay, let's start by cutting out the alcohol and just move to the sugar. So I started eating just like, and then I eventually, thanks to Greg Glassman taught me this. I would eat frozen berries with a little bit of heavy cream on it. And when you put heavy cream on frozen berries. Oh, that sounds good. Dude, it turns to magic shell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the only dessert my kids know. You just take a little bit of heavy cream and you put it on frozen berries and you're basically just eating a bowl of fat. That's awesome. Instead of a bowl of sugar. Yeah. And it gets so hard on you. It's so fun.

Yeah. Okay. And I found for me it was more salt. So as I've learned myself and what my body needs is I, I eat carbohydrates because of the salt. I like the salt. Okay. And that's because my body's deficient of salt. So I, uh, I I've learned through, you know, my own meal plan and macro learning that, you know, my body needs a bit, a little bit more salt. So I even put it in my water. So, well, that's cool. Good pink Himalayan. it in my water so well that's cool good pink himalayan so what what ends up happening so so at this time are you doing so you're going to school you're you're drinking too much um beer

you're eating too much pizza you're having too much fried chicken and what happens that is it just what were you doing at the hospital that day when you got on the scale? So that's what I do professionally. So I'm a certified health exec that I oversaw primary healthcare clinics. And so I was working in my own context and in own first nation as the director of comprehensive primary care, overseeing 11 primary healthcare clinics. And so I just was in there one day and I was talking to one of the nurse practitioners and he was like, you know what? I think we should try this wheel of death with you.

It's a new tool that we're trying to use. And I'm like, well, maybe we should try to change the name of it. Cause it doesn't sound too appealing. And, uh, and so we went through it and he was like, Oh yeah. He's like, you know, the early predictors and with the adverse child, like, oh yeah, he's like, you know, the early predictors and with the adverse child, child effects score that you have because of the trauma and so on and so forth that's happened in your life, you know, you're proposed. And I was 38 at the time. So he's like, you're proposed to have your first heart attack at 44. And I was like, what? Like what? And then I went home that week and my baby at the time we call her mouse her name Sophia she was learning we were trying to teach her how to ride her bike and literally savant I

I couldn't help her ride her bike I was just gassed I I couldn't get my breath and had a whole bunch of things going on and so there was a bunch of things that triggered that week and I was like I've got to get my shit together. So, um, I just started walking and I built a really good relationship with a high school friend of mine who knew about CrossFit. She was doing CrossFit in Grand Rapids at CrossFit 616. And she's like, you know what, you just got to start, you just got to start doing what you can do. And then the story just perpetuated after that. So, um, tell me the guy, the guy, the guy, the cat that did the wheel of death. Do you remember that person's name?

Yeah, his name was Richard St. Cartier. How do you do that? Is Richard just a really caring person or does he have a huge set of balls? You're obviously in a position of power at that place and he tell i mean i mean basically this guy kind of saved your life right he had he was trying to he was he was trying to test the tool to see because amongst our indigenous population but he knew but he knew roger it was going to like fuck with you like he he would he had to like i mean i wouldn't want to tell that would be hard for me i used to see g do that. Just walk up to someone who's 400 pounds, you know, and just be like, hey.

And they'd be like, what? And it's like, you know, someone just like wearing a sheet. They're so big. He'd be like, I want you to go to one of my gyms. I got something for you. And the people would look at him like he's crazy. And next thing I know, he's in a 15 minute conversation with them trying to save their life. And I'm like, fuck that shit takes balls. Well, you know, it does. And I think it's because Richard cared. He cared a lot about the community. He cared a lot about our people. And he was the chronic disease lead for our particular initiative that was really focusing on, you know, obesity, hypertension and diabetes, which are the numbers one, two, and three

killers of our people. And I think the stats, I looked it up the other day, and it's, we have four times the prevalence of diabetes and metabolic resistance in our community than the average Canadian, than the average American. And I even think in some parts of the States, from when I was talking with the people down in Arizona working on the Navajo Reserve, it's six times the amount. So, again, it's crazy. And so here's why it's nuts, because it's already so high in the in the other. It's like it's like so high just in the regular population. So to be any multiple of it is is mind boggling, mind boggling.

Yeah, but what's even what's even more mind boggling is mind-boggling. Mind-boggling. Yeah, but what's even more mind-boggling is that we have the answer. We have the answer to that problem, right? To metabolic disease, we have the answer. With CrossFit, right? Yeah, and people can take action like right now. Yeah. Today.

They can start today. If you're going to Starbucks, don't order a Frappuccino. If you're listening to this podcast right now and you're about to order a Frappuccino, just don't just get a coffee. Just get a coffee. Caffeine's plenty of a drug for you. You don't need the other shit. Just get a cup of coffee. Do you remember putting sugar in your coffee? No, but I remember the worst.

You know what? I remember the worst. I think it was it was Coke. It was drinking like six or eight cans of Coke a day. That was the worst. So I thank God for Coke Zero today. Yeah, wow. Wow.

Okay, so I want to touch on one thing. When you said the trauma, so they did the markers for you. He told you you have a heart attack coming right around the corner. You're like, time to do something. But one of the components you said is your trauma. What does that mean? What was he referencing when he said your trauma? So the amazing part about where you guys live in California is they did a study back in the early 2000s

that's called the Adverse Child Effects Study. You can look at it. It's called the ACES Study. effect study. You can look at it. It's called the ACES study. And it's an amazing study that basically gave us the evidence to be able to be the best predictor of comorbidities for all of humanity, not just Indigenous people, but it was all humanity. And basically, it's a questionnaire that you can take that you answer these questions, and it a good predictor of of what might potentially happen so how many comorbidities you might have growing up and so because of trauma whether it's alcohol addiction abuse so on and so forth you get a score and based on that score so savant you can look it

up and you can actually take the question it's a questionnaire of 10 questions and you can basically see hey you know it's making you mindful it's making you aware of questions and you can basically see, Hey, you know, it's making you mindful. It's making you aware of that. And on top of, you know, being predisposed to diabetes, predisposed to hypertension and heart disease and predisposed to an obesity lifestyle. It was a pretty good predictor that, you know, around the corner, something was going to happen. A train wreck was going to happen. Right. So. And I will, and i will look that up uh divesh uh maharaj every single weight loss guest you've mentioned

their problem was coca-cola yeah that that was that was one of the problem not not not the most problem i would say i think for me it was just my relationship with food and using it to cope and to deal with my emotional stuff. Cause at that time I also was building a young family, right? So, you know, having, you know, you know, one child after another's is difficult, right? And then trying to survive and all that stuff. So. Dude, I remember as a kid putting sugar on my cereal. Yes. I, I, I basically put cereal on my sugar and grapefruit. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grapefruit was, was unedible as a kid putting sugar on my cereal yes i i basically put cereal on my sugar and grapefruit oh yeah yeah grapefruit was was unedible as a child unless it was smothered in sugar so um

you were scared you didn't want to it was it i and i guess this is a theme amongst us um fathers too you didn't want to die because you had kids yeah totally like hey i need i need to raise these kids yeah that's exactly the case so i i the the reality was is that i didn't want to be able to leave them without a dad because to be totally transparent that's that's how i live my life you know my dad wasn't in my life after I was eight years old. And so I had that, you know, want to be able to have, you know, my dad and to be there for my kids. And so I figured, you know what, I can do something about it now that I know. But I will tell you, I did struggle. I did struggle for about 90 to 120 days to try to figure out what to do, to be like what do i do i'm at this rate i'm i'm in this body what do

i do um so you get off the scale at that time when you were did the wheel of death did you um did you had you ever heard of crossfit before no you never even heard of it nope okay and then so sorry i know you mentioned this but and then how did that pop on your radar? Well, so I had a conversation with a friend of mine who actually, I went to high school with her and she's actually a physician. She's an ER physician. Her name's Dr. Michelle Whitford. Shout out to Michelle because I love her to death.

She's a real reason why I started in understanding how to change my life and how to find health and well-being. And so she said, you got to check this CrossFit stuff out. And even better, I've got a guy that I can connect you with. His name's Christian Roberts. He's a nutritionalist and a CrossFit guy. And he can work with you and balance. And you know what? I'll help you out

so she helped me out got me connected and I started the journey learning about macros and learning about proteins carbohydrates and fats and what that was all about but also just basic movements and so we started that conversation and that journey ladies and gentlemen it's interesting I was trying to think of a good metaphor for it but basically a doctor that does crossfit is basically the a rhesus peanut butter cup of the the health world but the reason why it doesn't work is because i don't think a doctor alone is as good as peanut butter or chocolate but man you mix these doctors that do crossfit i mean they they they really have all the tools now they could fix a gunshot wound or they could fix your your um

impending um heart attack uh long in advance what a crazy thing and so when she tells you this is your instant reaction like there's no fucking way i'm gonna do this like were you scared or were you not scared since you didn't know anything about it no i i wasn't scared until i actually walked into crossfit gym in canora uh ontario and was like this guy's power snatching 265 pounds over his head and i'm like nope this shit ain't for me sorry right i went back to the i went back to the hotel that night savant and i told my wife we were doing a contract up there like i'm not fucking going back there oh sorry didn't mean to say that but i'm not going back there how how did you um what did you do your first day

and and how did you get past that but when you went in there that day did they have you do anything like did you um squat to a box or did you do any movement or was it enough just to go in there and walk out no so the the workout was actually all i remember from the first day of going into the crossfit box was pistols oh my so oh yeah so the workout was pistols and i was looking at this lady and she was an elderly lady and she was able to do a pistol like a champ and i was looking at her looking at me and i looked at steph and i'm like there are no days i'm if i'm going down i'm staying down and uh and i've fallen and can't get up so somebody's gonna have to help me but anyway so the coach there is amazing again shout out to dave emery

he's like nope that's not where you're gonna to start your job is to do heel taps and so he put a 45 pound plate on the ground and he said I want you to stand up on on the plate and I want you to just tap your heel that's what I want you to do and and and it just grew from there so that was amazing and and that kicked it catalyzed my journey so so you go back and you tell your wife you're not going to go back in how did you make it in then the second time well because she looked at me and she said you know what roger one of the things you've always told me is you've never quit so damn it's always a it's always a right right always a woman it's crazy so i uh tell me what she said to you again she said she just said that you know

what roger you've always told me that when you start something you finish it and you'll never quit so are you quitting and i was like oh man um and uh my when um i always tell my wife i'm like man i i don't know how this my life is like, but the universe is always conspiring to help me. And I remember when Matt Souza called me out of the blue and he's like, hey, you should start this podcast again. I'm going to help you with it. And I'm like, no, thank you. And my wife's like – I got off the phone and my wife's like, I thought you always said the universe is conspiring to help you. And I go, yeah.

She goes, well, someone just offered to help you with a podcast and you told them no and i'm like oh shit i called them back up like all right i'll do this for a little bit and she was right she was right like i was i was she was right they're right hey that's a good mate how did you meet your wife uh i met her working at the clinic and so she's a nurse practitioner by trade. And so, uh, you know, her and I, as our, our stories crossed, we met and, uh, yeah, the rest is history. And I think, you know, the other thing about going into the CrossFit box, I think the other thing that's inspiring is that I think that's just it, you know, going back and saying, you know what, if I keep this up, maybe, maybe one day, one day I can snatch 265.

So I'm not there yet, but we'll get there. I've never, I, Sevan Matosi will never snatch 265. Sevan Matosi will never snatch 165. Hey, um, uh, your wife believes in you. Yeah. Yeah. That's so nice having someone believe in you. Well, I think the other thing is that she, uh, she believed in me when I was big, right? So, you know, that she's a keeper. It's almost like that same phrase that if your wife believes you when you're poor, when you're rich, she'll stay with you. Yeah. I met my wife when I was homeless. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Hey, it's, it's almost like they see. almost like they see – so I haven't – I need to tell this story in detail one time. But before I met my wife, God knows, 20-some-odd years ago, I had this other girlfriend, and it was when I was homeless.

And she was a physiology – she was this beautiful girl who's a physiology major at the University of Santa Barbara. And she would always tell me, me man you have crazy earning potential and i was just this fucking homeless hippie and i'd be like what's she talking about but but your wife saw the your wife sees a a rock and she sees and everyone else sees a rock and your wife saw david do i sound smart when i say that isn't david the sculpture where the naked guy, the naked guy, the thinker? Your wife, some people see a rock and your wife saw the thinker. It's crazy. We're so lucky to have people like that in our lives. Well, I think, again, that's the beauty of CrossFit.

It's not just the one member that continues to encourage, but that it's multiple members. So I think it was a catalystic effect of multiple people saying hey you know what and i gotta tell you you know that's one of the things that i love about crossfit that's different than any other gym i've ever been in is that they're always cheering for you to beat them and to be successful right that's that's that's that's countercultural in the sense and so for me it was that's why i stayed with it that's why i stay with it today and that's why I stayed with it. That's why I stay with it today. And that's why I think, you know, that's, that's an answer for our people, because again, it's countercultural in, in being able to, to move us forward. So.

So, um, when do you start noticing weight loss? If you're three 98, when do you start noticing, um, uh, and you start start what year was it that you that you started do you remember your exact start date yeah june 17 2017 oh i thought that was the day you got on the scale yeah that's it but that next day i i i started i started my weight loss journey i went on a calorie deficit and I started to have the conversations, but I actually didn't start CrossFit until that January of 2018. And okay. Okay. So, so about, uh, so almost like nine months, 10 months after. Okay. But,

but in that 10 months you had already started working on cleaning up your diet yeah started working on cleaning up my diet i did the joey galloway interval running and uh started to try to to get my shit together um did you when did your wife start doing it did does your wife do it i'm assuming that eventually you're like okay you gotta do this too she started right away so she started to to run with me as well and and to even if she wasn't able to be there because potentially she had to be in the clinic she'd call and i talked to her when i ran and um but we both started crossfit the same place same thing oh so to this and to this day do you guys still are does she still do crossfit also

yeah she's a beast yeah she's a she's a gym she's a gymnastic beast yeah i got one of those two just someone i'm just never going to catch i just and um and and so what do you have do you have a goal or not a goal? Like a personal goal? I'm not suggesting in any measure that you need a goal. I'm not suggesting at all. But do you have one? Yeah, like when you started, you're 398 pounds. Do you set out with a goal?

So I had a goal that I was going to lose lose 200 pounds i wanted to lose a full 200 pounds holy shit um as the goal but i got i got realized i guess or i got a i i got a slap on the back of the head by saying i want you to focus and this was from christian roberts the guy that i was working with he's like i want you to focus on 10 pounds at a time. Cause he's like, if you look at the whole amount, you're going to get, um, you know, you're going to get, you know, kind of upset or you're going to get, you know, it's potentially get you knocked off your, off your path. And so just focus on the day and the now and what you got to accomplish that day.

And so that's the small bites and the small pieces was really helpful for me what what do your kids say about your journey all day or does it just seem normal they love it yeah no no so so harmony came up to me the other day and she said to me she's like dad i can fit my arms around you now where she couldn't do it before that is so awesome i was like do you want to slap now or later you have it's so nice that you have this crew around you that's just brutally honest and and this gentleman and this gentleman richard who put you on the wheel of death when's the last time you've seen him oh man i haven't seen him in years to be honest so he doesn't know no well he does know that i lost a significant amount of weight because two years after that so that would have been 2019 right before covid i spoke at a national

conference that he was actually in in the seat uh at um and he he had actually reached out to me and was like wow i can't believe it and there was some other things that happened i'd had arm surgery at that time and he was like wow you look amazing and i post a lot like so if you look on my facebook and my instagram you'll see the whole journey like i posted every day that was the other thing that i felt that Facebook and Instagram did really well was to provide a social accountability for me. Because again, if I'm, if I'm not posting my progress, then I'm not being a person who practices what he preaches. Right. So. Yeah. Um, these, uh, he kicked this guy, Yeah. He kicked – this guy Richard kicked a pebble, tiny little pebble down a hill, and it's crazy.

And now you've become this vector for spreading this contagious lifestyle behavior mindset. It's so important. Sometimes I'll post these pictures. Often I'll post these pictures of people who've gone through these incredible transformational journeys. And every once in a while, someone will say to me, hey, why do you why do you hold these people in such high self-esteem? Everyone should be like this. And no, I don't agree with that at all. I agree that everyone should be. I would much rather see. I want to see people sharing their transformation. I think that all we all we have, all our contribution here on the planet, our value as human beings is only how we help other human beings, only how we inspire other human beings to be better. And it's like that's what you're doing.

So however you're doing it, however you got there, it's cool. And it's for everybody. It's for everybody. It gives everyone hope. Yeah, it's inclusive for sure. As we get to 90 minutes here and I'm going to take my kids to the skate park, can you give me – oh, first I want to say one more thing. Hold on before we go. I want to touch back on the – where is that GoFundMe page?

This GoFundMe page will be in the YouTube links today. Or go to GoFundMe and just search Indigenous CrossFit Level 1 Scholarship Fund. Indigenous CrossFit Level 1 Scholarship Fund. And you could probably, if you don't know how to spell indigenous, you can just type in CrossFit Level 1 Scholarship Fund. I bet you this will pop up. There's a handsome, strong, strapping young lad in a front squat and uh and you can't you can't miss the page um what what advice would you give to someone who is in your same position who wants to just get started i think it's ultimately just cross that barrier and reach out to me i'd love

to hear from you i'd love to share even more of my story and any way we can encourage. And I think also the coaches that are out there, you guys are so fundamental, so fundamental for the people who are walked through your doors, you know, the CrossFit affiliates, the box owners. I got to tell you, you know, it's so fundamental. You make us feel welcome, even, even though that we might not be where we need to be. That encouragement is huge. Guys, so there it is. No one has an excuse. This man, Roger Boyer, you can find him at M-F-C-E-O-M-A-K-W-A, M-F-C-E-O-M-A-K-W-A on Instagram,

and he will start pointing you in the right direction of your weight loss journey, dude, 90 minutes of just, we just flew through this Roger you demand.