Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Greg Doucette on the Truth About Steroids

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

There’s no doubt steroids can help you get bigger, leaner, and stronger, but they’re not exactly safe. They're also stigmatized, which is why many people who use them do so in secret. So why do people use steroids? How effective are steroids and how safe are they? What are the risks of steroids? Can you just do one cycle to get the benefits without the side effects? What’s the best way to come off of steroids and what’s it like to stop taking them? Are they addictive? These are just some of the questions I ask Greg Doucette in this interview. In case you’re not familiar with him, Greg is an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder, world record-holding powerlifter, coach, author, and Youtuber with over 1.5 million subscribers who’s been open about his steroid use over the years. Because I’ve never used these performance enhancing and muscle building drugs, I thought it would be interesting to chat with someone who has. In this podcast, we discuss . . . Perspectives on who should use steroids and who has "the right" to The risks and effectiveness of steroids Why genetics matter even when it comes to steroids The psychology of coming off steroids and how to do it right Why you can't take just one cycle of steroids as a “cheat code” Why some people downplay the risks of steroids And more . . . So if you’re interested in learning about the pros and cons of steroids and what it’s like to come off of these drugs, listen to this interview! --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://www.muscleforlife.show/vip 6:35 - What are your thoughts on the transparency of using steroids? 15:08 - What are the risks and benefits of taking steroids? 18:55 - Can you train less intensely and get a nice physique when taking steroids? 24:41 - Is it important for our body chemistry to be compatible with the steroids we take? 28:04 - What has your steroid journey looked like? Why HRT? 32:41 - Do you think people can take steroids for just one cycle? 35:11 - What are your thoughts on people who disagree with the risks of taking steroids? 39:26 - How do you handle the negative comments online? 45:53 - What is the proper way to come off of steroids? 48:54 - Where can you find you and your work? --- Mentioned on the show: Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://www.muscleforlife.show/vip Greg’s Website: www.gregdoucette.com Greg’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqH-U2TXzj1h7lyYQZLNQQ Greg’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregdoucetteifbbpro/?hl=en

Hello, hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for an interview about steroids, because there is no doubt that steroids work. They can help you get bigger, leaner, stronger, and far more so than you could ever get naturally. But steroids are not exactly safe, and many people who use them don't really understand the physical and the psychological risks of these drugs. What's more, steroid use is stigmatized. Maybe not as much as it was 10 years ago, but still, as it was 10 years ago, but still online and on social media in particular, steroid use is frowned upon by most people in the online fitness community. And so many people use these drugs in secret. And in this episode, you're going to learn about the details. You're going to learn why people use these drugs, how effective they are,

how safe they are, what the actual risks are, if you can mitigate those risks or even eliminate them altogether by doing just one or two cycles of steroids. Some people claim that that's the way to go. Do one or two cycles, gain a bunch of muscle and strength, get off the drugs, retain most or all of that muscle and strength. And you've now massively shortcut the process to getting jacked. And there is more that my guests and I get into on the topic of steroid use. And my guest is Greg Doucette, who is an IFBB pro bodybuilder. He is a world record holding powerlifter, a coach, author, and very successful YouTuber. He has over one and a half million subscribers on YouTube, and he has been very open about his steroid use over the years. And as I have never

used these drugs myself, whenever I have spoken about them or written about them, I've come at it from the perspective of scientific research and anecdotes from people who have used steroids. And so I thought it might be interesting to get somebody on the show who has used steroids, who is open about it, and who likes to educate people people and who knows what he's talking about. And that's why I invited Greg to the show. But first, how would you like to know a little secret that will help you get into the best shape of your life? Here it is. The business model for my VIP coaching service sucks. Boom, mic drop. And what in the fiddly frack am I talking about? Well, while most coaching businesses try to keep their clients around for as long as possible,

I take a different approach. You see, my team and I, we don't just help you build your best body ever. I mean, we do that. We figure out your calories and macros, and we create custom diet and training plans based on your goals and your circumstances. And we make adjustments depending on how your body responds. And we help you ingrain the right eating and exercise habits so you can develop a healthy and a sustainable relationship with food and training and more. But then there's the kicker, because once you are thrilled with your results, we ask you to fire us. Seriously, you've heard the phrase, give a man a fish and you feed him

for a day, teach him to fish and you feed them for a lifetime. Well, that summarizes how my one-on-one coaching service works. And that's why it doesn't make nearly as much coin as it could, but I'm okay with that because my mission is not to just help you gain muscle and lose fat. It's to give you the tools and to give you the know-how that you need to forge ahead in your fitness without me. So dig this. When you sign up for my coaching, we don't just take you by the hand and walk you through the entire process of building a body you can be proud of. We also teach you the all-important whys behind the hows, the key principles and the key techniques you need to understand

to become your own coach. And the best part, it only takes 90 days. So instead of going it alone this year, why not try something different? Head over to muscleforlife.show slash VIP. That is muscleforlife.show slash VIP and schedule your free consultation call now. And let's see if my one-on-one coaching service is right for you. Hey, Greg, it's great to finally connect. We tried to do this some time ago, but there were technical issues and then, you know, you're busy. And so I appreciate you making the time to do this. Yeah. Glad to be here on the Muscle for Life podcast. I'm excited.

Yeah, same. And I wanted to bring you on the show to talk about steroids, which is something that I've talked about, I've written about, and I've gone over some research. I've shared other people's anecdotes who have used steroids. other people's anecdotes who have used steroids, but as I have not used steroids, that has been used to discount my opinions or even my interpretations of research and my recommendations for people, which I'll just open with. My general recommendation really since the beginning has been, if you don't want to be a professional bodybuilder at the highest level, and if you're not making a bunch of money with your physique, so if you don't want to be a professional bodybuilder at the highest level, and if you're

not making a bunch of money with your physique, so if you're not like a professional athlete or with your body, or if you are not the next Captain America or something, I don't think that the risks warrant the rewards. I think it's smarter to stay natural and understand that you are not going to be as big, lean, or strong as people who are on drugs, but you also are not going to be risking your health. And so that has been my position. I don't feel morally against steroid use. I'm just coming more from the angle of health and longevity. And so I wanted to bring you on the show to hear your thoughts on that. And then I have some other questions. Other things just around steroid use and where I think it might be interesting to start is.

So years ago, when I wrote a book and started producing fitness content, it seemed like there were not many people who were open about steroid use. There were clearly people who were using steroids. Anybody who knows the effects of these drugs could spot them very quickly, but not very many people were open about it. And there was a time when I was younger and I would get maybe not accused, but people would wonder like, is Mike on steroids? I mean, you look at me now and you go, all right, if this dude is on drugs, that's a waste of drugs. And at the time it was only because I'd gotten really lean for a photo shoot. You get good pictures, you get really lean, you get a pump and you can look half natty as they say. Right.

And you can look half natty, as they say, right? And so at that time, when I would get questioned, sometimes I would say, look, no, but if I do ever this years ago, I'll bet you if I were just open about it, most of you would have no problem with it. And then I could even educate you about, okay, so I was natural for however many years. And here's what it took to get to this point naturally. Here's where I started using drugs. And here, here is the experience from from that point. And I think that that would probably be interesting to all of you. That's how I would go about it. And I was saying at that time, at some point, someone's going to figure this out, I bet you more people are going to do this. And it's going to actually help their brand, so to speak, it's gonna be good marketing. And I fast forward to now, it seems like that is coming to fruition. I see more people now who are open about their drug use and who are saying exactly the same thing, saying, I don't really understand why I would lie about it. And in fact, here, let me use my

experiences to help educate you about these drugs and the pros and the cons so you can make a better decision. There really does seem to have been a paradigm shift in thinking in regards to the use or not using of anabolic steroids. I remember when I was growing up, and I'm 46, no one could talk about it. No one admitted to it, even the professional bodybuilders who you just knew had to be on steroids who wouldn't admit it. Then, as time got on, and I think that is the case for everything, people are more and more accepting of things. And I think at this point, it's okay to admit that you're on steroids, that people don't completely judge you, although they still do not as much as they used to. Eventually, I think that people are going to be more accepting of people who are on HRT. But at this time, I would still

say that most people still do in fact lie and keep it secret. Like it's, it's better than it was, there's a huge shift in thinking, but most people are still lying. And to go back to what you first brought up about, um, you know, if, if you think that you should only use steroids, if you're a professional that you for money and all that stuff, that's a very common view. And I do appreciate that view. And I think it's very valid. My, However, my own personal view, it's the exact opposite of that. I think that me, for example, having been a professional bodybuilder, I don't think that that gives me more right or more reason to take steroids than the average person from nothing. And for example, you mentioned your physique, that you're natural and that you don't

look like you're on steroids. Honestly, most people who are on steroids, if they could look like you, they would be very happy with that. You look way better than the average person on steroids. And so I don't personally think you're on steroids. I could see why people would think that you were because the most, most people who take steroids, they don't look like a professional bodybuilder. They just want to look average. And most people on steroids are obese, overweight, and they want to not look like that anymore. They want a way to get to just look okay with their shirts off. And they would certainly look at you and be like, I'll take that. And so a lot of people, they just have an over, an overestimation of how effective they are. They think that you can go from nothing to pro bodybuilder just with steroids. But the fact is the pros already have ridiculously amazing genetics

and the steroids just help that 15 or 20% extra. And so you take a natural guy with amazing genetics, they're going to be 99% of the time, a guy who has horrible genetics, who's taking every drug in the world. And when you say then steroids and normal people taking steroids, which you're, you're absolutely right. It's, it's a good point. When you say that word, though, what are you referring to? Are you just referring to HRT? So just like a moderate dose of testosterone or a large dose of testosterone and other stuff as well. And so I guess I should point out that I think no one would argue that it's not smarter to be natural, no matter who you are.

Like, how is that an argument? It's like everyone should be natural. No one should drink. No one should do drugs. No one should speed. No one should text and drive. No one should drink. Like, it's like obvious. No one should do steroids. But if you're talking about who has the right to do it, I think that the average person who just wants to look okay on the beach has just as much right to do so as the Mr. Olympia competitor who wants to win or the WWE wrestler or the supreme athlete that just says, I need these steroids to make a living. I think that there's no reason why I deserve it more in the same sense that when I go to the gym to train, I don't deserve the equipment, even though I have a show in a

week or two, for example, then the person who just wants to lose 10 pounds, like we all have the equal reason or incentive to do this. Just it's a lot of people say don't use steroids unless you're a pro bodybuilder. And in my head, I'm like, I know people who use steroids, and they just want to look normal. They just want to feel better. And so in my opinion, we're using them all for the same reason overall, and which is to improve our physique. I mean, I guess then we should probably talk about risks, right? Because that would be that would be the only counter argument. If there were no risks at all, then it would be an easy decision. I would I would be on drugs. Why? Why not? I would be bigger, leaner, stronger. And, and so what are your thoughts there? Because when I hear somebody normal, just wanting to look good, well, maybe they're not obese, but whether let's say they're just kind of overweight normal or maybe even underweight normal.

You give them what a year of proper training and proper eating. They're going to look pretty good. They're not going to look like a fitness model in a year, but they're going to look pretty good. They're going to look a lot better than 95% of people on the beach. And that's without drugs. Yeah, absolutely. I think that most people, if they were willing to put in the work, that everyone could get halfway to their dream physique, which is a message I keep preaching.

Try not to be perfect. Try not to think you need single digit body fat. Just get halfway to your goal. If you're 300 pounds and you wish you were 200, you get to 250, you're going to look pretty freaking good compared to where you're at 300. It's huge changes. And so why try to be perfect? But the thing is, people are looking for the quick fix and they want to get there and they

want to do whatever it takes. They'll get breast implants, hair extensions, lipo, suction, Brazilian butt lifts, like everything. They'll do anything to look better. And so steroids is to me the same thing. Like if a woman's using, getting a breast implants, to me, that's the same thing as a guy using steroids. You're trying to improve your physique. Now, is it healthy? Well, it's debatable. Are breast implants healthy? Like, is that, I mean, is it for the most part,

probably are steroids healthy? Definitely not. But people, if they're willing to trade that risk, I mean, they're going to do it. I can't see anyone arguing with me and saying, no, getting drunk on Saturday or using rec drugs is healthy, but yet we still do it. And so my opinion is people should try not to do it or avoid doing it. And if they do decide to do it, use the lowest dose possible, which obviously would be something like HRT in the same sense that if you're going to drink, well, don't drink as much as other people, maybe just drink half as much. Same with steroids. The less you use, the healthier it is. Now, I'm not saying anyone should do it,

but I'm saying I know that people will do it. And so if you do do it, you should try to mitigate the risk. And that makes a lot of sense. Again, I think that is right in line with my message, which has been, hey, if you're like most people, you can get the type of body you want without drugs. It might take longer than you would like, but you can do it. And I think it's smarter, just as I think it's smarter. Ironically, I'm someone who doesn't drink. I never got into it and figured it's not a habit worth taking out, but just as it's smarter to not go get drunk every weekend. Two questions. So there's the risks question. If you could just share some of those risks, and there are physical as well as

psychological, right? And then there are the benefits. There's the efficacy. Maybe let's start there because that one is a little bit more interesting. You mentioned a lot of people think that these drugs are more effective than they really are. And you mentioned that there are quite a few people on drugs who don't look, quote unquote, like they're on drugs. You wouldn't think just looking at them. So yeah, if you could just talk to us about efficacy and then safety. So, yeah, if you could just talk to us about efficacy and then safety. Okay, well, the benefits of using steroids are basically going to be you're able to build muscle a lot faster, probably 10 times faster. And so whatever you could accomplish in a year, you're probably going to do it in a month. And so people see it as a shortcut. So obviously, you're going to be able to recover from the gym better. You can lift bigger weights.

The muscles are growing faster. And so really, that just sums it up. Now, as far as being able to burn fat, arguably, you can burn more calories, because some of the calories you're using are being used to build muscle. But with that, you usually experience an increase in appetite when your body's using up more calories, your body kind of compensates by sending in more ghrelin. So you're more hungry. So eat more. So you can't just take steroids. And it's just a quick fix of getting ripped. That unfortunately is not something that mostly happens. And a lot of people who do take steroids are looking to get a six pack. And it's not going to do that.

It's going to give you bigger muscles, but you're still going to have that six pack covered by that layer of body fat, which is more likely going to be fixed through diet and cardio. So that's, to me, the main benefits. Now, the negatives, the worst is shortening your life. I mean, that's, to me, the main benefits. Now the negatives, the worst is shortening your life. I mean, that's the worst part. Like you're not going to live as long because high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, getting increases in bad cholesterol, lower good cholesterol. And so a host of those problems, nevermind your liver, kidneys, those things. But what people usually talk about, because I can talk to somebody about,

you'll die younger. No one seems to actually, there's literally more people worried about losing their hair and getting gyno than how long they're going to live. I don't think young people can really look into the future. It's kind of like, I'm not worried about that.

I'm here right now. I'm in my twenties or even they're in their teens. Yeah, they're in the fog of war. Yeah, it's like, I can't look at 50 years from now what will happen. I see right now, I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I don't have confidence. I don't have self-esteem.

Maybe they're trying to look better to attract a mate, whatever it is, but they just don't like the way they look. And so they get into steroids because they want to look good. And people will do almost anything for that, let alone if it's not steroids, it's drugs. Is there a drug you can give me that will crush my appetite? They'll take it.

They probably would trade 10 years off their life to lose 10 pounds. A lot of people are just that far into doing anything to look good. Just think of people get into bulimia, eating disorders, they'll go through any diet in the world. They'll starve themselves.

They'll do this crazy kind of diet all to try to look better. It's that important to people. And so there's an obsession of society to look a certain way. And these drugs like steroids, fat burners and all that stuff, it's just to help with the people's obsession on trying to look better. Now, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. with the people's obsession on trying to look better. Now, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

So you can build muscle a lot faster, but what some people don't understand is you're just going to get more out of what you're doing, but there is a point where if you don't know what you're doing in the gym, it doesn't matter how many extra drugs you take. That might move the needle a little bit, but for example, if you are following a low volume

training program of any kind, regardless of frequency or intensity, that's only to get you so far, right? Regardless of how many drugs you take. And I just know that I've come across people who have this idea that if you take drugs, and especially if you take not just testosterone, but other drugs that you can train in a very suboptimal way and get a great physique. It doesn't usually work out like that, right? Well, if you take steroids and you train less intensely or like let's, I'm on HRT, I do 140 milligrams a week. Now, if I up my dose by tenfold, which I've done way bigger doses than that, let's call it 25 fold, I could go to the gym once a week and make more gains than I'm going right now, for sure, without question.

So I could train way less and get a bigger, better physique. But it's not going to be at the level that I could if I trained all out. But I also, before I took any steroids whatsoever, 100% natural, I was still winning overall provincial championships against people on steroids. So even as a natural athlete, without steroids, I still look better than 99% of competitors who are taking steroids just because of genetics. I can say I worked so hard for it and everything, which of course I did, but it really comes down to your genetics. And if you have really great genetics for putting on muscle, the steroids can make it

work that much better. If you have horrible muscle building genetics, you take steroids, it's going to make it better, but you still won't be able to put on as much muscle as you think. And so steroids do work, but typically guys going to gain maybe 15 to 30 pounds of muscle. Just add that to whatever physique is. If you're five foot six", 125 pounds, then you might get to 5'6", 150 pounds at your biggest. I'm 5'6", and I'm 193. So if your genetics aren't there, even with steroids, you're going to only get to where I was as a teenager with the steroids. So it's not going to work as much as you think. Not saying we're trying to downplay its effectiveness.

I'm just trying to be accurate on its effectiveness. And some people have better receptors, and they're better able to make use of these anabolics they're taking. It's just we all are different and unique. Some are better responders than others. And so you give the same hundred people the same dose. One person's gaining five pounds. Another one's going to gain 20. And it just so happens that your genetics dictate which one you're going to be. That's interesting you bring up genetics, because that's even controversial, something that I've written and spoken quite a bit about. I've gone over, for example, Casey Butts' work, which I really liked for helping people predict or get an understanding of their genetic potential. But

even the claim that there is a genetic ceiling to muscle and strength gain, there is a point where you are going to gain very little additional muscle and strength. They say that's wrong. And you can basically gain muscle and strength, continue gaining a significant amount of muscle and strength, even if significant is just a few pounds a year, more or less forever. I can think I'm, I won't name names, but I can think of at least a couple of people who are, I don't know, they're probably in their 50s and they're, of course, jacked, shredded, strong on drugs, but pretend to be natural and tell their following. This is their message that, you know, hey, I gained another four pounds of muscle this year. If I can do it, you can do it.

But clearly you disagree. What are your thoughts on genetic potential for muscle and strength gain? Well, I believe we all have a genetic ceiling, both natural and enhanced. So as a natural athlete, I trained as long as I could, whatever it was like 20 years, and I got as big as I could. And I'm like, I'm training. And is it possible that my diet was not optimal, or I could have changed training a bit and maybe gained a pound more, perhaps, but I'm sure I was at 99% there. And then when I took steroids, all of a sudden I had a new potential, which was even higher. Now, the further, imagine elastic, the further I stretch that

elastic, the harder it is to stretch it. And so when you're just sitting at baseline, it's very easy to put on muscle because there's no stretch pulling you back. You get to your natural genetic limit, you're already there. But once you take steroids, you can pull it even further. But once the elastic is at its stretch limit, you can't just pull it anymore. It's not going to just stretch forever. And so you can't just get as big as you want. You can't just say, I'll add more steroids and I'll get bigger. There becomes a point where, in fact, the more steroids you add, the less muscle you build. I've taken steroids at such high doses that it was limiting my progress. Once you can't sleep anymore, once you can't train, once you feel like garbage,

I'm talking about like almost debilitating sickness from taking so much steroids, it's not going to work anymore. You take Trenbolone, for example, and Entate or Acetate, doesn't matter. If you take too high of a dose, you can't sit still and feel normal. You can't sleep, you have anxiety, you feel like shit, and you can't wait to stop taking it. And so you can't just double the dose. And I took as high as 700 milligrams at one point per week. And I just couldn't handle it. Now I know other guys who took 1400, they took double my dose, and they were able to train on that. But everyone has a limit of how much steroids they

actually can utilize. And so if you keep upping that dose, it makes it worse. And so I would make better gains on 500 milligrams of trend than 700 because it's 700. I can't sleep. And if you can't sleep, you can't recover. And so you really have to keep that in mind and understand that steroids, everyone's going to react to them differently. Some people react to them really well in small doses. I think I'm one of those. Like Even on HRT, I feel amazing on this low dose. But if I take a crazy dose, I might put on 15 pounds of muscle, but that's it. You would think that being 193 pounds on such a small dose prescribed for my doctor, that if I went crazy and took what the Mr. Olympia took, that I could become the Mr. Olympia. But yet I've already done that. And I didn't, I didn't get that big. So for me, I didn't respond that well. Other people,

they respond amazing and they just keep growing. They're just freaks and they can put on 60 pounds of muscle. I'm not one of those guys. You don't know, unless you try, you can't just look at someone and say, Oh, if you took steroids, eventually you'd become 300 pounds of muscle. You can't tell. And, and how much at a much at the highest level of bodybuilding, how much of it is just this point of chemistry? It sounds like a lot of it is who responds best to drugs and who can take the most drugs. Because at that level, everybody has great genetics, right? I mean, it's like, you know, guys in the NFL, they're all outstanding athletes. How much truth is there in that, that, that at the high level, it, a lot of it now is,

is mostly about the chemistry or is that not correct? Well, I made a video about this and I talked about your potential. It's basically, we've got four categories and one is your potential to build muscle in low doses. So let's call it 25%. The next is, can you build more muscle with really high doses and keep pushing the envelope? That's where I'm not as good. Another is your genetics of like, how good is your structure? Like, do you have wide shoulders, a small waist, your height and all that stuff. And another genetic thing that I'm a firm believer on is how is your work ethic? How is your motivation? How is your brain chemistry towards suffering and being able to willing to put in the work? You have a guy like David Goggins, it'll say, Oh, you can just will yourself run 100 miles. I don't believe that I've trained with

athletes my entire life in various sports. And 99% of the time, I could outwork anybody, I rarely would see somebody that was willing to train harder run harder swim faster push themselves more and the ones who do they usually are really going to excel but you and i've coached these sports i was a phys ed teacher for years i coach a number of sports and so for me i believe bodybuilders the same thing we have some guys with the best genetics they look amazing but they have shitty genetics for putting in the work. They won't train six days a week. They won't train to failure.

They'll half-ass their workouts. And you all see that. Then we have other guys. They train so frigging hard. They put their soul into it, but their genetics suck. They have narrow shoulders and they just could never get the X frame. And so depending on how much of each of those four categories that you have, that's going to ultimately dictate just your end results.

And so at the top level, they all have a lot of everything. They all have ridiculously good genetics. Now, maybe on a scale of 100, like Chris Bumstead is at 95%. It's not perfect. His biceps are not perfect. But another guy might be a pro and he's shorter and blockier, but his genetics for putting on muscle are still through the roof. So everyone's genetics are quite high up.

And almost all of them's willing to work hard is really high up. I mean, the dieting, the suffering to do that. And then almost all of them respond extremely well to steroid use. However, you could say that maybe in classic physique, they don't respond to steroids as much as an open bodybuilding because like the big Rammys are 300 pounds versus the crisp bumsteads are 240 pounds. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. or if you just like my podcast in general and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might

want to learn something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. episode or another one, please do tell them about it. So you're now on HRT. Why have you come off of drugs that you were using previously? Why HRT? And what has that experience been like for you? I guess I'm particularly interested in the psychology because I've spoken with people over the years who were once using a lot more than that and very big, very strong, very lean. And they would just talk to me about the negative psychological experience

of when they would even cycle off and lower energy levels and smaller. And that would often drive them back to adding more bigger doses. I don't think that steroids are addictive in the sense that like you can get addicted to cocaine or something like that. I don't feel that they're addictive that way. Although I do feel there's an addiction to how you looked and how you felt and being like, I want to look like I did. And so when you take steroids and you see yourself putting on all that

muscle, and you see how much better you look, and how much stronger you are, that can kind of be addictive, because other people give you a lot of compliments. Like when I started taking steroids, it was like, wow, you look so big, you're so strong, you're so much. And so the compliments, the dopamine you're getting from hearing your friends and strangers coming up to you and saying, wow, you look phenomenal. And then so that can be addictive to maybe that's why I did 59 bodybuilding shows. Because every time you do a show, you get shredded, your abs look amazing, you're in the gym, the veins are popping out, and people are like, wow, you look so good. And so you hear that all the time. And so that can become addictive. And then, for me, the reason I had to stop was just

purely health. I was like, okay, look, I'm in my 40s now. There's bodybuilders that are dying. They're getting heart attacks. And I'm not an idiot. I have a master's in kinesiology. I know the dangers of what I'm doing. Although I still opted to abuse steroids. I still said, well, here are the risks. I want it that bad. I want to be a pro bodybuilder. I want to excel. For me, it was easy to be natural because I was always making improvements. And so as you're improving, I saw no reason to take drugs. But once my improvement stopped, I was like, well, I want to keep getting better. I want to get a pro card.

I want this or that. And so that's when I used it. My decision to stop was purely for health benefits. I would absolutely love to go on a cycle right now. If I thought I could just triple my HRT dose and have no negative side effects and live the same life, I would without question do it. I wouldn't even think about it. I would absolutely want to take steroids and do a cycle like I've done in the past. And so the only reason I don't is because I want to be healthy and I want

to be here longer. Now, what people experience, I think mentally is that you see your physique and you're getting your dopamine from all the compliments that people are giving you from how you look. And so I had to find a different way to do that. And so what I do right now is like, I see your bike in the back, I race bikes on Zwift. And so I had to switch sports essentially, and start somewhere else where I was getting so much dopamine, so much excitement, so much joy from sport from being able to improve myself and to get better. And I needed a new challenge. And so when I started bike racing, now I can't wait to get on the bike and erase I raced like yesterday, and I'm always on the bike and I'm trying to get better. And so I'm seeing improvements versus bodybuilding. I'm not getting bigger or stronger. I'm way weaker. I have

less muscle, although I still haven't, I haven't lost any muscle in the last year. And I actually put on a little bit despite all the cardio I'm doing. So I'm doing good just to maintain what I have. Intellectually, I can realize that I'm at 46 and that to have muscle at this age, eventually it's going to go down. And so I just have to basically sit there and accept that. But it is mentally difficult to just know that you're not going to look the way you once did. I mean, I can look at old photos and they're like, man, my triceps are huge. I mean, I tore both triceps in bike accidents. I had my triceps reattached.

So my muscles aren't as big. And you get the compliments, the comments. Look how small your triceps are. And it's like, yeah, you know, it sucks. But what am I supposed to do? And so if you just listen to everyone shitting on you or hating on you, what kind of life are you going to give? And so you have to, like, look at what's good about you.

Focus on that. And so I'm having fun with the bike and improvements. And I still like getting a pump in the gym. So I still train everything. And you just have to be happy elsewhere. And if you get into bodybuilding and you get into taking steroids, and you say, I'll just do that one cycle, then I'll stop. That almost never happens.

Because once you've experienced feeling like freaking Superman by being on steroids and improving faster than ever before, 10 times faster, probably for a couple of months, it's hard to stop and then lose that gains and lose all those compliments and have people not treat you the same anymore. And so that is difficult for most people. I'm glad you brought that up because I was actually going to be in that house. Exactly. You read my mind. That was going to be my question because that's something that many people have asked me. Well, what if I just did one or two years? And like you're saying, I'm going to,

I'm going to get maybe seven, eight, nine years of gains, uh, in, in those two years, like essentially I'm just going to reach probably more or less my natural potential in just a couple of years. And then the idea is like, and then I'll just come off and, uh, the joke's on you. It took you 10 years to get there. It took me too. If that could work, I would, I'd be like, and then I'll just come off. And the joke's on you. It took you 10 years to get there. It took me too. If that could work, I would, I'd be like, yeah, let's do it. And I've coached people and I have to convince them, try not to take steroids. Let's wait, wait, wait, wait. A lot of people are like, no, I just want to take steroids for like a year. I'll get to my natural genetic limit and I'll come off and I'll just keep it. I just want the shortcut. I just want the cheat code to get there. And then I'll stop. And I'm like, there is not the problem. And it's

worse. And this is like, I got to warn people. Once you've gained at an accelerated rate, the gym is no longer as fun anymore. Like once you go on that first cycle and you put on 10 pounds of muscle and you probably will in three months, like a normal person, probably going to put 10 pounds quality muscle in three months. It's then shitty to go to the gym in the next three months and continuously lose strength every single week. So I've done it. I go on steroids. I've done many cycles for 10 years. I go on a steroid cycle, then I stop. And when I stop every single week, I get weaker. I literally have less strength like after a cycle's over than if I was natural. Like I have no strength. I have no drive. I'm worse because your testosterone

level, say I'm at like 700 and something nanograms per deciliter. So you're on a big steroid cycle. Say you're at 5,000 nanograms per deciliter. You feel like Superman and you're gaining like crazy. Then you come off and your testosterone levels are down to 50, like in the tank. So then you go from feeling normal, a normal guy that's natural to Superman to feeling like a girl. Like you have the testosterone levels of a woman. And so you're you're losing. You're not just maintaining, you're losing. And so once you've experienced gaining a pound or two of muscle every month, let's say, and then you go to losing it or then it takes you five years to get to where you were when you did that cycle. It's not fun. So the gym becomes shitty. So long as you're making any gains,

say it's three pounds of muscle a year, the gym is going to be fun all the time because you always are getting better even by a little bit. But if you gain a lot of muscle and then you lose some, it's shit. And so anyone that starts steroids young, 18, 19, 20, early 20s, it sucks for you. And I feel bad because you're going to have all this fun for the two or three years that the steroids work. Then you're going to get to that genetic ceiling limit again. And then it's not going to be funny anymore. And if you ever come off, you're just going to hate the gym. And what do you have to say to people who say that the risks are overblown, who would disagree with even some of the things that you've said? Oh, well, I came off because of health and it's taking years off of your life.

The more you use these drugs, as you know, many people either they don't want to look at it. So they just say, no, that's not true. Or some people, they do try to get into the weeds and they try to poke holes in research. And again, their argument is the risks are far overblown. Use these drugs. Large amounts of testosterone plus other drugs will be just fine. Yada, yada, yada. Everyone is going to justify or self-justify their actions.

We're all looking for the cop-out mechanism so that we don't judge ourselves as a horrible human being. We're always trying to mentally feel good about ourselves. And so if we make stupid choices, we will rationalize and justify why we're doing that. When you see somebody who's morbidly obese and you say you should lose weight because it's going to lower your life, they will have justified in their heads that it's OK, that it's not a big deal, because if they don't, how could they continue to live their life? If you're using recreational drugs, you can't sit there and think I'm an idiot every single day. There's no way every day you're thinking, well,

that was so stupid of me. I'm drinking, doing drugs, like I'm an idiot. So you just justify it. So you downplay everything. I've done a video about the dangers of bodybuilding. To me, equal on par with morbid obesity. So somebody who's 250 pounds of muscle versus 250 pounds of fat, I feel like they're about equal. Even though they're shredded 250, the steroid use that's gotten to do that is going to have as much harm as being obese. And if you look at the blood work, you have the person who's taking tests and training all these things, high blood pressure, messed up cholesterol, all these different things. It's similar to the one who's morbidly obese, who has the high cholesterol and high blood pressure

and so on. So you're doing the same damage to your body. And so people always say, right, you're a hypocrite. You're saying all these dangers and stuff, but you did it. I said, yep, I am. There's no difference from what I did to me being Nikocado Avocado. Well, I'm not sure if you know, he's 400 pounds. He's a YouTube eater. He's a mukbang eater. He went from under 200 pounds to 400 by binge eating for four years, gained 200 pounds of fat. He's a beast. But he probably has a lot of subscribers. Millions of subscribers, billions of views, more than a billion guys, a multimillionaire. He's crazy. I've done nine videos on this guy, I believe at this point. So super popular binge eating. To

me, there's no difference from that than being the Mr. Olympia champion or doing what I did for 10 years. But what's the difference? Well, I stopped. I'm not still doing it. So if I continue to use steroids from say the age of 30 on to 40 on to 50 to 60, that would to me be the same damage wise as being a horrible eater from age 30, 40, 50, 60. And so if you're listening to this right now, and you're morbidly obese, you can stop, you can putidly obese, you can stop, you can put the fork down, you can exercise and you can get better. It's not going to undo all the damage that it was done from, say, being overweight for 10 years, but it's certainly going to help. And if you're listening to this right now, and you've been using test and tran and using steroid cycles and so on for the last 10 years, it's not that you didn't do any damage.

But if you stop and start a healthy lifestyle at this point, you're certainly going to live longer, have a greater life expectancy than if you just keep doing what you're doing. And so that's my response to people. I'm like, yeah, I did some stupid things. It's certainly not good. I chose that because at the time, the dopamine that make me feel good from making that decision outweighed the negative side effects that steroids obviously are going to cause. And it's not like I didn't do education research on it. I knew it's not good for me, but I chose to do it anyway. Now, mind you, I got my blood work done and I was proactive with my health. And if I saw high

blood pressure, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to stop. But I never, I was lucky my genetics that allowed me to use the steroids. They seem to come out good. I don't know if I didn't do any underlying damage that I don't know. Maybe when I'm older, I'll find out, oh, geez, it really did mess up. I don't know. But at least I was getting my blood work done. At least I was being monitored by a doctor. Other people, I was coached them. I'd be like, you need to go to a doctor and find out like, no, I don't want to know because what happens if there's some bad news? I'm like, well, if there's bad news, you'll stop. No, I don't want to stop. I can't stop. And so that's when it's really in the head. Yeah, that's a that's a that's a tough spot to be in. You mentioned people needling you about your physique or your triceps. And you obviously have a big following online, a big YouTube channel, a lot of people say a lot of things online. Does any of that get to you? Or if not, how do you how do you block it out psychologically? Is it just your personality?

Or I think I was made fun of a lot in my younger years. So I kind of got used to being shit on or teased or what have you. So it just became whatever. And even as far as is this high school, I said, man, not giving a shit about things is going to make my life a lot easier. And so I said, well, I'm just going to stop giving a shit about what people say. And so I'd be the guy that would go up and do a speech in front of the class. And if they all made fun of me, I'm like, how does it matter if they all laugh at me and I do this speech? How does it matter? And other people be like, I can't speak in front of this public. Like, what if I screw up? And I'm like, well, so what? So once you stop caring, it's so much easier. And so when I started making videos and started getting more popular, I just stopped caring as much. I'm like,

why do I care about sounding perfect and sounding smart and saying everything proper? I'm just going to say a bunch of stuff. If I make mistakes, people laugh at me for being an idiot or a moron and we'll go on with it. And so I think that really helped reading a bunch of comments. The only time it bothers me, I suppose, is when they make up a lie. Cause if it's a truth, like you're an asshole and I'm like being an asshole, then that to me, that's not bad. But when they lie, if they say something like the, you made up the fact that you have a twin, like I read these different comments, you're lying about having a twin. I'm like, but I literally have one. So that annoys me because I'm like, but it's the truth. But overall, the comments don't really bother me

because they're helping me. So in my mind, I'm like, all these negative comments are allowing me to be successful. So that's what's helping me. I think if I didn't have the hate that I had, as I became more and more popular, I wouldn't have got to where I am today. So I kind of owe a thank you to the people for shitting on me. Because if you get 1000 negative comments in a video, and then some people are like, why did they say that? And they start defending you, that helps your channel. The controversy helps some of these nadier knots and stuff. And people say, I don't agree with you, Coach Greg.

You're an idiot. You said he's natural. He's actually not natural. You're stupid. And so that kind of propels you forward. And in real life, in person, where it matters, no one ever says anything. No one ever comes up to me and says anything.

Not one person has ever walked up to me to get a photo or talk to me and said anything bad ever, not once. And so why would I worry about what people are saying when in the real world, like in reality, not like in some fictitious place where people write comments that they never met you, which doesn't matter.

It does not have an impact on you because in the real world, it's all positive. And I don't never met you, which doesn't matter. It does not have an impact on you because in the real world, it's all positive. And I don't know about you, but I've found, I'm thinking more of book reviews, but often I've gotten good feedback from critical book reviews or just even critical comments online. And so what I've always done is I've kind of sorted them into two buckets. One is just the ad hominem. Yeah, you're a moron, whatever. Stuff that there's no, I can't use that. What am I supposed to do?

Be less dumb? Okay, that's not very useful advice. Fine. But there have been a lot of criticisms of me and my work over the years that I've found useful because people are mentioning something specific that I can understand and even that I agree with again especially with books and

early on people would point out information that was missing it would it would have been really good to to if you would have answered these questions, that's a good point. Yeah. I'll note that down or, you know, or just similar, similar types of comments where if I don't instinctively just have kind of a bunker mentality. And if I'm, if I don't instinctively just go to defensive, uh, half having to obsessively be right about everything that I do, I've, uh, I've gotten value from, I don't, I wouldn't even say quote unquote haters, but just people who have negative things to say about me and my work. And so, yes, exactly. The chrism you got for your book, that's going to help you because more people are going to be talking about it. I specifically remember when I released my cookbook book is way

overpriced. There's no pictures. It's a ripoff. And then people are like $99 for a book. And so everyone started looking up this book but like I had full intention to sell for $199 when people heard that they're like what are you talking about they're like I'll just wait for the sale you know how people always market half price I'm like what do you mean I'm putting the price up and so the next book I made was $149 and I have the hard copy it's $200200. And so the controversy from that was crazy. I'm like, yeah, but you guys not know how good this book is? Like it's selling it because that's what it's worth.

Like I was charging money for coaching plans, charging a lot of money and people were like making major changes in their lives. I'm like, why would I want to discount this and then not have people hire me? So I had to put the price at the place that I thought it should be at. And so the negativity I got from trying to sell this book helped me. So I had to put the price at the place that I thought it should be at. And so the negativity I

got from trying to sell this book helped me. And so I could see that it would help you. So if people are going to talk about your book, whether it's good or bad, it gives you the chance to defend yourself. And I see nerds and learn and know a lot about it. Certainly, if you research about it, and use it and have both experiences, that's even better. But I don't think that somebody who just researches doesn't know about it. I mean, and I'll defend you even more in saying that a lot of my friends who had been using steroids, I learned a lot from them. And then I started reading about it online. And I'm like, what you guys are all saying makes no sense to me based on the research that I did. And so before I ever even took a steroid, I knew more than probably 99% of people who are using them. I'm like, you should know everything about a drug

that you're going to put into your body. You should become an expert on it. And so I've been researching for years before I even started using it. Yeah. And that's something that I guess, actually, we are getting to now just that point of, well, you haven't used drugs. And so your ideas of interpretations of research are somehow invalidated because you haven't personally done it. That argument always seemed silly to me for obvious reasons. So then apply that to cancer. You're saying I can't understand things about how cancer works and how maybe some cancer treatment works and cancer research because I haven't had cancer. Come on, guys, that's silly. But one more question for you before you run off to the gym. drugs, dabbling in drugs, and they have now decided probably not the best decision. Like Greg, I want to go maybe just HRT and we don't have to, that'd be a whole, probably a whole another discussion unto itself. But for people who want to come off of drugs, are there good and bad ways

to come off cold turkey or use certain drugs to wean off? Absolutely. I think that if you have taken steroids, the best way to come off would be to do a PCT. Some people would say, just go cold turkey or use certain drugs to wean off? Absolutely. I think that if you have taken steroids, the best way to come off would be to do a PCT. Some people would say, just go cold turkey, just stop completely. I think that's the worst thing you can do because you're going to experience the dramatic side effects, the withdrawal from stopping, the loss of libido. You won't be able to get an erection. That'll happen to almost anyone. You'll have such a poor sex drive that you won't even think about having sex. It's horrible and you're going to lose so much muscle muscle PCT, what it does is it gets your body back to normal faster. And so wouldn't you want to get back to normal faster. So one or two years to

recover to feel normal. And so when I came off completely, I had to make a decision, do I want to just take a PCT and just and obviously obviously a hundred percent natural, I would not have this much muscle. Like I'm five foot six, 193 pounds. That's what I am. If I were completely a hundred percent natural, I probably would go down to 173 pounds. If I had a stopped everything before I might then recover and then build back maybe five, six, seven pounds of muscle. And then I, maybe it would have ended up at one 80, but I certainly wouldn't walk around at 193 pounds. And for me, having been 200 plus pounds of muscle and been on stairs for 10 years, I think that's too much to have asked for me to just go cold turkey and stop and lose all my muscle. So rather than losing all of it, perhaps I lost

half of it. But that's somewhere in the middle. That's something that I can handle mentally and physically. I now feel good. And for me, it wouldn't be worth it. And so my advice to other people, if you've just done a cycle or two, probably can get off and feel 100% normal. If you've been doing it for many years, and you just go off with a with a PCT, I don't know if you're going to be able to handle it. But I can't speak for these people. If you're young, 20s, 30s, I don't think you need HRT. If you're in your 40s, 50s, you've been using steroids, I almost think that for most people, you're probably going to need HRT because your testosterone levels at this point probably already would have went down.

And if you're thinking about using steroids and you're not sure what to do, my advice, do the lowest dose that makes you happy. Rather than jumping on a cycle, try an HRT dose. It doesn't mean HRT, but try a low dose and see maybe that's enough. Maybe just 150 milligrams or 200 milligrams of tests rather than 500, a thousand. Maybe that's enough to keep you happy. You can always go up the dose from there. But if you start at a high dose, I'm going to use test and trend on my first cycle. How do you then use a lower cycle? Because once your body is used to this much and you give it that much, you feel smaller. So it's better to start low. And eventually, if you need to, you can go up. Makes a lot of sense. Well, I know you have to run off to the gym, so I don't want to keep you

any longer. And thanks again for taking the time to do this. And why don't we just wrap up quickly with where people can find you and find your work. And you mentioned you have a cookbook. And if there's anything else you want people to know about, let's tell them. Well, I'm well known for having an anabolic cookbook. I have several of them. I also have several training books. I do coaching plans. Greg Doucette.com. You can go on that website and you can follow me on Instagram. Greg Doucette, IPB Pro. And really, if you can't remember anything, just type Greg Doucette on YouTube and you'll find something that comes up, whether you want to learn about how to lose weight, build muscle or some controversy or if somebody's natural or not,

or literally anything. I have over 2100 videos at this point. There's got to be something for everyone. I do a variety of videos for both people who are natural and enhanced. And so please check me out. And I'll say as a final comment, I think it's kind of cool to see how much popularity you've gained on. I've seen it particularly on YouTube, I'm sure elsewhere, though, as you had mentioned earlier in the interview where you just decided, hey, I'm just going to make videos and sometimes I'm going to misspeak and people are going to say whatever they're going to say, but I have a good story. I have information to share, and I'm just going to put it out there. And I think you've done a very good job of that. Obviously, 2,100 videos, you've worked very hard at it, and you have a good personality for it. So there's a genetic quote-unquote factor.

There is a little bit of an X factor, right? You're fun to watch, and you're animated. But it's nice to see. It's nice to see that people can just get into it, something they're passionate about, good information, just put it out there, be consistent. And I'm guessing that when you first started doing it, maybe you had an idea that it could become this whole thing. But I'm guessing you didn't have a master plan. And I say that because when I got into, when I wrote my first book, I didn't have a master plan.

It was just a book that I wished somebody would have given me when I was 17. And it just says, hey, don't worry about the bodybuilding magazines and all the stuff that you read on forums and that people say in the locker room. Just do these things and you're gonna get mostly to where you want to be.

Well, thanks for all the compliments. And like, literally I made YouTube and I did not think I would get 10% of what I got to like 1% would have been like a dream. I made videos. I was hoping to get more clients for coaching. That's all it was for. I literally was like, I need more clients. I need to coach more people, not just in my Halifax area, but around the world. So I started making videos because I'm like, well, I should be able to coach from a distance. And then as the popularity got better and people are like, man, I want these recipes that you keep talking about in your videos. And I made this cookbook and I was actually nervous.

I was like, this might hurt my business. Like no one's going to hire me for coaching because they're going to have my cookbook. And so I was scared. And then once I saw how many sales I got from the cookbook, which was 100 times more than expected, I was like, okay, that was not a bad decision to do after all. And so I've toned a lot further back on coaching because there's no time.

And I ended up going all in into making videos, doing two videos a day on average. I have 30 videos pre-recorded right now that are done that I could literally die and it'd be videos for the next month every single day. You know, so, you know, just working hard, trying to be successful. And I realize there's a lot of luck to this. I don't think that I'm just better than anyone. I just think I got lucky, the right place at the right time, the right kind of videos with the knowledge and the experience from a lot of years of doing things and just telling people what I think and not lying and not being like a bullshitter. And I think people like it. Yeah, clearly they do. Clearly they do. So anyways,

congrats again. I don't want to keep you any longer, but I just wanted to say that. And thank you again for taking the time to do this. Yeah. Great interview. Happy to answer your questions. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people

who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.