Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - What Do I REALLY Think About People on Steroids?

Episode Date: July 7, 2017

If you’ve been kicking around gyms for a while now, you’ve probably noticed that steroid use is becoming more and more common. Just here in the U.S., at least a million guys and gals of all ages turn to the sauce every year to get bigger, leaner, and stronger faster, and these numbers only seem to be going up with time. This isn’t surprising, really, considering how many juiced guys and gals dominate the fitness social media scene, how much of a difference the right drugs can make, and how easy it is to get your hands on anabolics (you can buy ‘em on Amazon, FFS…). And so I’m asked about steroids. A lot. And so I thought I’d make a podcast to answer the questions that I get most, like… What do I think of people who take steroids? Why am I not on steroids when it could probably help me make more money? What are good and bad reasons to take steroids? How can you tell if someone is on steroids? How dangerous are steroids, really? 5:02 - What do I think about people on steroids? 6:27 - Are there good and bad reasons to take steroids? 19:30 - Why am I not on steroids? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or grind away in the gym every day doing workouts that you hate. Now you can find my books everywhere. You can buy books online like Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audiobooks like me, you can actually get one of my books for free, one of my audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. That's www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. And you can see how to do this. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I really think you're going to like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion.

Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because

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something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from muscle for Life and welcome to another episode of the podcast. Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, you have probably immediately noticed the new setting and that's because I'm recording this in my office in my house as opposed to my office at my office. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want to bring back the long form monologue discussion type of episodes that I was doing for the first long while or so before I switched to just mainly interviews. And the reason I want to bring these episodes back is mainly just because people have been asking for it. So I've

gotten a lot of really good feedback about the interviews that I've been doing and the guests that I've been getting, but I've also been getting a lot of requests for these types of episodes where I just go myself in depth on something and share all of my thoughts. And I'm cool with that because I mean, I just love the sound of my own voice. No, just kidding. But I actually do enjoy producing these types of episodes because just as I like to articulate my thoughts in writing, I also like to articulate my thoughts in speech. So these are a good exercise in that. All right, so let's talk about what this episode is going to be all about. And as you probably know, because you probably saw the title of the video or the podcast, it's going to be about steroids. And specifically, what are my thoughts about steroid use in general?

What are my thoughts about people that take steroids? And why am I not on steroids? That's a question I actually had asked fairly frequently and it's a good question because if I were on steroids I could look a bit better, I could eat a bit more food, I could stay a bit leaner year-round and ultimately that would probably help me sell more stuff, right? So it is a good question, and it's something that I've answered many times in writing and in emails, and I actually did record a podcast on this subject,

but it was quite some time ago. So I thought it would be interesting to give my updated thoughts on everything. So that's what we're gonna dive into in this episode. So let's start with answering a simple question, and that is, what do I really think about people that take steroids? what we're going to dive into in this episode. So let's start with answering a simple question, and that is, what do I really think about people that take steroids? And the simple answer is, I really don't care. It doesn't really mean anything to me. I'm a libertarian at heart,

a classical liberal type of person that believes that people should be able to think the things they want to think and believe the things they want to believe and say the things they want to say and generally just live the way that they want to live so long as they're not actively harming others or society in general. And so when it comes to steroid use, my initial thought is, well, if someone wants to do that, it's their body. So go ahead and do it. Similarly, if they want to drink alcohol, go ahead and drink alcohol. If they want to use recreational drugs, go ahead and use recreational drugs. Now, I don't personally think those are all great choices, especially when you look at long-term health, but I also think that people should have the right to choose what they want to do with their bodies. Now, that said, I don't think it would be good if a society or culture enthusiastically

promoted the use of these types of drugs because while you could argue that all of them can be used responsibly and in a way that mitigates the risks, if you just look at the statistics, there are a lot of people out there that don't have the education or self-restraint to do that and, you know, as a consequence, they abuse drugs and ruin their lives. Now coming back to the individual I think there are good and bad reasons to take steroids. So if your livelihood depends on your physique or your athletic performance and that is absolutely a legitimate reason to take steroids because if you want to play at that level you're going to be up against a lot of people that are on steroids. And in both cases, they are going to have a huge advantage

over you if you're not also on drugs. So let's say you want to be a physique competitor or a bodybuilder or fitness model or something like that. The unfortunate reality is if you want to reach the upper echelons of any of those careers, the type of look that you need simply can't be achieved naturally. The amount of size that you need, the leanness that you need, and the hardness, dryness, you just can't get there without drugs. And similarly, drug use is rampant in professional sports because no matter what a sport demands of your body, professional sports because no matter what a sport demands of your body, there are always drugs you can take that are going to allow you to push beyond your natural capabilities and therefore be better at the sport. So, you know, if a sport requires a lot of endurance, then there are plenty of drugs you can take that dramatically improve endurance and therefore make you better at the

sport. If a sport requires a lot of strength and power, we all know, of course, there are plenty of drugs you can take that can help you gain a lot of strength and become much stronger than you can ever become naturally. And that, of course, then carries over to the sport itself. And you have to realize that if you're at that elite level of competition, slight edges can really add up to major advantages. Professional athletes are always looking at how do they advance their skills a little bit further? How do they push their bodies a little bit harder? Get a little bit more performance out of their bodies. How do they shore up their weaknesses a little bit better? And in pretty much all cases, in all sports, if you can just improve your overall athleticism or your recovery,

that's going to translate into being better at your sport. And so you have these people that in most cases, they've been playing these sports their entire lives. They've put in thousands of hours of work. They've been dreaming of making it big and making a living playing that sport since they were little kids. And they get there and then they realize a few things. One, they realize that everyone else

is also very, very good, much better than anything they've seen up to that point. And they realize, two, that a lot of these people are also using drugs that give them considerable advantages. And three, that if they want to keep up, they probably have to use drugs as well. And so many of them choose to do what they have to do to remain competitive at that level. And it's understandable. Again, given those circumstances and then also adding in the potential of millions and millions of dollars of money,

I think most of us would probably choose the same. Similarly, if we were in Hollywood and someone came to us and said, Hey, we want you for the next Captain America movie, but you need to gain 30 pounds of muscle in six months, and we also need you to be kind of lean, so you know what that means, yes or no. I don't know how many of us would say no. So those are what I think are the quote-unquote good reasons to use steroids, the reasons that I understand.

If I personally were in any of those situations, it would be a hard decision. I could see myself deciding to use drugs under those circumstances. Now let's flip to the other side of that coin and talk about the bad reasons to use steroids. And those are what you would expect. So just things related to ego and vanity and tricking people into buying things mainly. We see a lot of this on social media, of course, where you have many people that are, both guys and girls, that are very big, very lean, and on very large doses of drugs to look like that. And I think that's a bad reason to take steroids, because not only is it physically unhealthy,

which I'll talk a little bit more about later in the podcast, it's also emotionally and psychologically unhealthy, because, you know, why are these people doing it? Why do they care about their followers or how many followers they have? Why do they care about, you know, how many likes their pictures get or how many DMS they get or how many comments they get? It's because they want attention from other people. They want approval. They want admiration. Many cases, they want people to be envious of them. And I think that, you know, in terms of your personal character, the further you go down that road, the worse off you become. I think that that is essentially, it's like a poison that just kind of warps you as a person. You know, I think

this relates to just fame and being famous in general. I think that if you don't want fame, then you can actually deal with it effectively. If you don't care about being famous, but you are famous, then you're okay. But if you want to be famous, and if you desire fame, that's when I think it can ruin your life and turn you into someone that you probably never would have conceived that you could become. I guess you could kind of maybe liken it to cancer. It's like fame is a cancer that you can have in your body. You know, we both have cancer cells in our bodies right now, but we also have strong immune systems that are keeping them at bay,

killing them off and preventing them from, you know, consuming us and killing us. Um, a bit extreme, I know, but I think that, I think there's actually, there is an analogy there in that if you truly don't want fame, then your immune system, in a sense, your psychological immune system can remain strong and can keep it quarantined, so to speak. But if you want people to admire you and you want the acceptance from people and you want the attention, then that's when it can consume you and turn you into, going back to Lord of the Rings, turn you into Gollum. And I think that at least partially explains a lot of the bizarre elitist, aloof, out of touch behavior that we see among many famous people who think that they are so tremendously important and so much more important than all of the filthy peasants, the great unwashed,

you know, ironically, the people whose shoulders they're standing on. But anyways, back to the subject at hand. Yeah, all that bad reason to take steroids. So moving on, let's now talk about another bad reason to take steroids that I mentioned, and that is to trick people into buying things. And by things, I mean supplements, workout programs, coaching services, stuff like that. And as I mentioned earlier, you can achieve a look with drugs that you simply can't achieve naturally in terms of size, leanness, dryness, hardness. And you can also achieve results a lot faster with drugs than you can naturally. So it's not that hard to, especially if you have genetics on your side, to go from normal to wow and then present yourself to the world.

Say, look at me. Don't you wish you looked like me? Well, if you give me your money, then I will sell you this workout program or I will coach you and teach you how to look like me. I have some special magic bullet. I have a special method. I have a special technique. Clearly, look at me. And these people, think are pathetic. I think that they are reprehensible and really represent what is wrong with the fitness industry. And that is at bottom, just dishonesty. I think they do their followers a few disservices. One, in many cases, their advice is just not good for natural people because they themselves never really got anywhere naturally. They don't know the big differences between being on drugs and not being on drugs.

So they're often recommending that their followers do exactly what they do in terms of training and diet, but not drugs. and then that sets those people up, that sets these followers up to fail because they simply are not going to get anywhere near the results as the person that they're looking up to. And that can be pretty demotivating for a lot of people. I know because I hear from them. They write me and they'll say, hey, I've been following so-and-so's program for so long. I've put in a lot of work and I have not seen anywhere near the results

that I was expecting. What's wrong? And in many cases, they think it's something wrong with them. They think that they just don't have the genetics to gain muscle and strength effectively or something else. And from there, a lot of them are just frustrated and at the point where they're considering just giving up altogether or maybe even getting on drugs themselves. So that's one disservice. I think another disservice that these fake natties are doing to their followers is just setting unrealistic benchmarks. So inevitably, and this is one of the problems with social media, and there's research on this actually, this effect where the more time you spend on social media, the more you just start comparing yourself to others.

So you're going to be comparing your body to their body. You're going to be comparing your life to their life. And of course, what you're seeing on social media are not real lives, but carefully stage managed lives of, you know, in many cases, photoshopped pictures, and it's all very fake, it's very cultivated. So in the case of physiques, when you look in the mirror, and you may actually, objectively speaking, have a great physique, if you're looking at it by just everyday normal standards, you might be far above average. And you know, you might be the way that the average person perceives you might be far, far better than you even, you know, perceive yourself. But you look in the mirror and then you go to so-and-so fake natties profile and you

look at his physique and you're just like, or her physique. And in comparison, you look like shit. And objectively speaking, this is not even like where, yes, that person objectively speaking has a much better physique. And that then again, in many cases, and I know this because I hear from people where it just gets them down on themselves, where then they think that what they've achieved now is, is just nothing compared to so-and-so that they follow. And they don't understand why. Now, even if one of these fake natty guys or girls do share good advice, which is out there,

it's still fundamentally dishonest. And I would think that it just kind of eats away at their soul, whether they realize it or not. When you're lying that much and you also then inevitably start lying more to yourself and it becomes, I think probably a pathology. Um, and this also kind of strikes at, I think one of the, one of the big rationalizations that a lot of these people tell themselves is that, yeah, you know, they're lying about their drug use. Maybe they wouldn't even use the word lying. They would find some euphemistic way to express that, but they're lying about their drug use. lying. They would find some euphemistic way to express that, but they're lying about their drug use. However, they are using that to educate people and share good advice and, you know,

teach people the right way to go about things. And they do understand the difference between being on drugs and not being on drugs. Therefore, you know, you could, you could probably even twist that around and argue that because being on drugs allows them to reach more people and actually help people, that it's a good thing. And to that, I would say that sure, with enough mental gymnastics, we can make just about anything morally palatable. It's been said that we are not rational beings, but rationalizing beings, and that we should never underestimate our ability to delude and deceive ourselves. But none of that ultimately means that our actions are, on the whole, good and right and constructive. So that, you know, the means justifies the end.

And that line of thinking has been used to justify some of the worst atrocities in history. And I don't want to liken stuff like, you know, the hundred plus million people that have died under communism or the Holocaust or stuff like that to fake natties selling PDFs. I'm not going to, I'm not going to say that they're like, they're literally Hitler. Um, but my point is that mode of thinking is, I believe, pathological. no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on

social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. All right, so now let's answer a question that I'm asked fairly often, and that is why am I not on steroids? You can probably glean some of the reasons based on what I've already talked about in this podcast, but it is a good question still, like I said earlier, because if I were on drugs, I could probably gain another 10 or 15 pounds of muscle fairly easily, which would look pretty impressive on my physique. I could stay leaner year round. I could eat more food. I could look drier and harder. And ultimately

I could use that to sell more stuff. I mean, I could use it to probably mainly build my following on social media a lot faster and get more people to buy my books and buy my supplements and so forth. So it is a good question. So the first reason is I generally actually just stay away from drugs on the whole. I don't drink alcohol. I don't use recreational drugs. Really, the only drug I ingest regularly is caffeine. And my intake is really in the low to moderate range. We're looking at probably 150 to maybe 400 milligrams per day. And I've done quite a bit of reading on caffeine. And based on our current scientific understanding of it,

there are no long-term health risks associated with that level of intake. And if there were, if new research comes out that effectively refutes what we know now, then I would reduce my intake accordingly. Even if that meant that I had to eliminate caffeine for my life, I would be totally fine with that because really what it comes down to is I like to have some pre-workout before I go to the gym and I like cappuccinos. But if I had to get rid of those things, I had to delete them from my life, then I would be okay. You know, whatever life goes on, right? And in case you're wondering why I stay so drug-free, there are a few reasons. One, I think it's a good strategy for optimizing long-term physical and mental health because generally speaking, especially as you get older, the fewer drugs and medications you have in your body, the better off you're probably going to be.

So there's that. There's also just the fact that I don't really feel the need for or the compulsion to chase the chemical release that is provided by drugs. So a lot of people, they use drugs as a sort of crutch or coping mechanism in their lives because it helps them feel better about things or run away from their problems. And that doesn't really hold any appeal to me. I am much more the person that is, I would be, you know, I'm more interested in facing up to my problems and facing up to the things that I'm not happy about

and figuring out what can I do about those things to improve conditions so I can truly feel satisfied about, you know, my circumstances in life. And lastly, there is the little fact that I am human like everybody else and therefore susceptible to the same traps. So, you know, if I were to get into drinking or using recreational drugs or steroids, who knows, maybe I would find that I absolutely love them and, you know, completely get off on the hedonistic pleasure of it all and then go down the path of addiction and

have a whole new set of dark problems deep problems to deal with that affect not just me but my family and everybody that's close to me so yeah I mean it reminds me of a quote from from John Rockefeller I read a biography called Titan which was an amazing biography I highly recommend it if you like biograph also the dude that wrote it, Ron Chernow is probably one of the all around best writers that I've ever read. Um, you know, I was blown away at just his command of the English language is, is, is impressive. But anyways, so, so in the biography, John Rockefeller was talking about, uh, you know, he was, he, he was a teetotaler, so he never, he didn't drink any alcohol his entire life. And, uh, one of his, I mean, it was kind of just a little quip,

but he was also semi-serious in that, you know, he can't become an alcoholic if he doesn't take the first sip. And that kind of resonated with me because that's kind of how I've been thinking about drugs in general, where, uh, you know, I can't become a drug addict or an alcoholic if I don't dabble in drugs or alcohol. And so that's where I'm at on it right now, at least. And I don't see that really changing in the foreseeable future. So another reason why I'm not on steroids is I don't care enough about being super jacked to want to gamble with my health. I'm happy with my physique the way it is. It's something that's sustainable. I enjoy my workouts. I think that I can maintain it for the rest of my life so long as I don't sustain any major injuries. And if you add steroids into

the mix, you're now looking at, there are side effects inevitably. Some are worse than others. It really kind of depends on what you're taking, how much you're taking, you know, how you're cycling it and just how your body responds to drugs. So some of these side effects are reversible. Some of them are irreversible. For example, you have things like testicular atrophy, cystic acne, elevated LDL cholesterol levels, elevated blood pressure, increased aggression, and so forth. Those are things that are reversible. Some people experience those things and then they go away when you get off the drugs. Irreversible damage can be caused by steroids though, and that includes stuff like male pattern baldness, lowered sperm count, though, and that includes stuff like male pattern baldness, lowered sperm count, and also just infertility straight up, you know, bitch tits, gyno, things like that. So all of those things

do happen fairly often, and I, you know, don't want to take that chance. So another thing I really don't want to mess with is psychological dependence, which is very common among steroid users. In one study I had looked at, 30% of users had a dependence syndrome. And if you talk to drug users that are honest about their drug use, you run into it a lot. There was a guy that, when I was in Florida, that would work out in the morning with me, super nice guy, very open about his drug use and he he loved the physical effects and he loved what it did to his physique but what he was very open about and why he regrets starting and why he was encouraging me to stay natural is that he just realized that

he was psychologically addicted to the drugs because they made him feel so much better than when he was off drugs. And that was inside the gym and outside the gym. And just, he had, you know, what felt like unlimited energy. And he felt like he even, I mean, how he said is it kind of made him feel like a, like a superhero, basically, like he could do anything and he could, he could overcome any obstacle and he could beat anyone. And he loved that feeling. And then when he would come off drugs, he would feel very different. And that ultimately would lead him back to going on, back on drugs, back on drugs. And he had tried to come off and say, this is going to be it. I'm not going to do it again. And unfortunately, for the reasons I just said, he would end up back on. So

it was kind of interesting to, cause I had, you know, known him for, I guess it was probably over a year that I would see him regularly. And so I would see him go through these, you know, psychological ups and downs. And because he was very open about it, it was just interesting for me to witness. It's also worth noting that, you know, you can never really know what you are putting in your body because a lot of these drugs are really made in underground labs. Sure, you have certain drugs are created by big pharmaceutical companies, but a lot of the bodybuilding compounds are not. So really, you're kind of putting actually literally your life in the hands of your source and how much do you trust that person? How much do you know about that person? How much do you know about where these drugs are coming from? Who's making them how they're being made?

Again, those are all you know Variables that you have to think with if you are going to get on steroids and then there's also the fact that you know we don't know what the long-term effects of a lot of these drugs are going to get on steroids. And then there's also the fact that, you know, we don't know what the long-term effects of a lot of these drugs are going to be because there's research that'll never get by, never get passed by ethics boards that would, you know, maybe lend some insight. So basically what we have is we have a lot of bodybuilders,

amateur professional, and then just your everyday body composition crowd of people that are essentially, they are being the case studies that we will look back on in 10, 20, 30 years to see what happened to these people. What did these drugs actually do to their bodies? And I don't want to be one of those case studies. Another point is similar to how I kind of stay drug free. I also like to generally not do things that break the law, even if I don't agree with the law. So I don't think it really makes sense that steroids are illegal. I think a good argument can be made that alcohol

causes more harm in society than steroids ever could. But regardless, I don't think it's mentally or emotionally healthy to do things regularly that can get you in trouble with the law. I think if nothing else, living like this, it just kind of frees up energy and attention that you can just put into more constructive things. And the final point, which is something I already touched on, and that's just that I do believe strongly in personal integrity and honesty. I mean, even if it's just for the selfish reasons that research shows that people that lie the least generally report better physical and mental health, lower levels of stress, better relationships, fewer headaches, fewer sore throats. It's just life is better when you are more honest. And I think that is probably because, at least partially,

because most of us want to see ourselves as honest people and we tell ourselves stories to that effect. So when we behave in dishonest ways, we experience a bit of that cognitive dissonance that we then have to suppress and rationalize away. And the more we have to do that, the general, I think the worst we feel in general. And like I was saying earlier, I mean, I think that can get so bad and so pathological that, you know, we come to believe that truth itself doesn't matter or doesn't exist and it's all relative or subjective and whatever we tell ourselves is reality. Um, and, and, I mean, that's just mental illness. So, um, so yeah, I mean, I think that's a, that's a pretty, that's pretty much everything though. That's why those are the, those are the big reasons why I'm not on steroids and I never will

be. And that's everything I had for this podcast. Um, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please do, if you're on YouTube, please do give this video a like and subscribe if you want to see more stuff like it. And if you are listening elsewhere, please do drop a review for the podcast. It really actually makes a big difference. The search algorithms are pretty rudimentary. A number of reviews counts a lot

toward your visibility in search results. So yeah, if you like the podcast, please do drop a review and subscribe and you will get updates as new episodes go up. I am producing one a week right now, and I'm going to be alternating between the interviews and these longer form monologues. It may not be a one-to-one. I might end up next week. It might be a monologue and something else. Maybe if I'm feeling inspired, I kind of want to do one on IFYM versus clean eating, especially and just talk about some of the current trends that I'm seeing on social media in particular

that I don't like. I'm kind of in the mood to rant. So maybe that'll be the next one. Maybe it'll be an interview. We'll see. But my point is I'm going to be jumping between interviews and monologues. So please do let me know what you think of bringing these types of episodes back. You can reach me on

social media, of course, or you can shoot me an email, Mike at muscle for life.com. And, uh, you know, I run about a week behind cause I get a lot of emails, but you will get a reply. And, um, yeah, thanks for, thanks for sitting down and listening to what I have to say. Let me know what you think. Um, and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness.

Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.