I Gave Him Fake Steroids For 100 Days

I honestly never thought I would be doing this, but—

This is Ray. In about 10 seconds, he's going to inject what he thinks is real steroids into his body. That's because one month earlier, Ray sent me this DM asking me to help him hop on the juice. But when I asked him about his goal physique—

You look good without your shirt on.

You, Anatoly, guys like that, you know.

I don't want to be like, like crazy huge.

I haven't been able to really achieve it naturally.

But I've never taken steroids. Nor would I recommend them, and I genuinely believe I can help Ray get to his goal without them. So for the next 100 days, I'm giving him fake steroids. My goal is to get him results so good that when I tell him at the end, he doesn't punch me in the face. But more importantly, he no longer considers hopping on the juice. But for any of this to work, I first have to convince him it's real. Hey, what's up, man?

Come on in.

Nice to see you.

Ray's downstairs right now, and he's about to sign the waiver. But for legal reasons, on page two, we had to add. It had a clause that literally tells him that he's taking a placebo. And if he ends up reading that, then the experiment is over before it's even started. Oh, he's flipped over. He's on page 2. He's not supposed to read it. Nobody reads these. He handed it back. Now it's time to meet him.

And to actually track Ray's progress, there's 3 tools we're using. First are DEXA scans to measure his muscle gain and fat loss. Starting on day 1 and hopefully again on day 50 and day 100. That is assuming he doesn't catch on to what we're doing. Second is blood work, which I booked to measure Ray's testosterone levels on day 1 and hopefully again on day 100. But for our final and most important test, we also gotta measure your testes.

Let's do it.

Oh, my testes. Sorry, I thought you meant you were talking about my chest for a second.

Okay, rather than measuring his testes, we're assessing his day 1 strength on bench, Squats and pull-ups, where he is already at 16 reps.

That was good, man. You got a lot of power.

Which again makes me wonder why he's so convinced that he needs steroids to reach his goals.

Dude, you have great size, man. You look good.

I want to look better than this. Like, if I have a shirt on, I feel like I don't look like somebody that works out.

I mean, I'm the same way. If I put a t-shirt, you would never guess that I'm a fitness YouTuber.

In fact, even Ray's dream physique Anatoly is only able to prank people in the gym because in baggy clothes, people can't tell how jacked he is.

Yep.

But despite Ray constantly telling me he needs to get bigger, I'm not convinced he fully understands the risks of taking steroids.

I do want kids, so hopefully that doesn't go away.

It could.

Yeah.

That's like a real risk that you're signing up for, right?

I mean, yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Uh, I guess like if you're somebody who really wants kids, yet this is something that could potentially ruin that, what actually makes it worth it?

Um, yeah, I mean, if you put it like that, it's a little hard, but I don't know, just want to get my body better.

With Ray already starting to hesitate, it was time for the moment of truth.

I honestly never thought I would be doing this, but Okay, well, this is— this is just for show. This is just for show. When you're starting, it's actually much safer to use orals.

Since I don't want Ray harming himself with an actual needle, the plan is we're gonna fill each capsule with some flour. That is like a go-to placebo.

The protocol is you're gonna take one pill every other day, and then after the 30 days, we're going to increase the dose to 1 pill every single day. It's so that we don't go like 0 to 100.

And don't worry, I did check with Ray about allergies beforehand.

Okay, giant red pills. I never knew there was test— oral test. All right, so this is it. That's it, no more Natty.

Natty card is Gone, my friend.

But I'm not in the clear yet because everything I just told Ray about oral steroids being a safer option isn't 100% true. And when Ray started searching online, he was quickly getting suspicious.

It's the day after we saw Ray when he took his first dose, and he was up until midnight having a deep conversation with ChatGPT.

So I had to do my best at convincing him, and, uh, no, it worked. It worked.

But that has me a little bit concerned because it's It's only day 1 and he's already asking some questions. We're gonna have to do some more stuff to actually convince him that it's working.

So on day 3, I introduced Ray to a new training plan that I've designed to mimic the results you'd get from taking steroids. Have you ever noticed how a lot of guys on the juice have really big, unnatural-looking traps and shoulders? Well, when you take steroids, testosterone latches onto androgen receptors in your muscles, but some muscles like your traps and delts are believed to have more of these receptors than other muscles do. Making them more likely to grow when you hop on the juice. So to give Ray more of that enhanced look but naturally, I'm using some of the most effective exercises for growing these muscles.

Fully round and then squeeze up and back here.

Good.

Down. Nice.

Now we'll see just how well these exercises help Ray achieve the jacked look he's after. But just changing a few exercises isn't going to be enough because Ray's already been training for years. He's clearly an intermediate, which should make muscle growth a lot slower than if he was a beginner. But after hearing more about Ray's current training plan, I did spot 3 big mistakes I think are holding him back. First, Ray is training with a typical bro split, where he trains each muscle hard, but just once a week. Now, while this approach can work, research suggests you can get roughly 30% faster gains if you simply go from training a muscle once per week to twice per week. So I'm changing his workout routine to an upper/lower split with a 5th accessory day. But my second adjustment explains why Ray claims he kept getting stronger, but his muscles weren't actually getting any bigger.

You're performing this as like a powerlifter, and there is like a lot of momentum, and like the hips come off the bench. So even though you're lifting heavy weight, a lot of that lift comes from the momentum, not actually like tension on the chest.

By lightening the weight and controlling each rep, We're forcing his target muscles to actually do the work, getting him more from less. And while nobody likes having to lift lighter, Ray was actually willing to make every single change that I proposed.

I feel like pumped up way more.

Yeah, that's what I mean, man.

Yeah.

And finally, Ray was making what I think is the biggest mistake holding people back, because just this year, researchers put 30 trained lifters through the same workout program but split them into 3 nutrition groups. One followed a tracked high-protein diet at maintenance calories. Another followed the same diet but in a slight calorie deficit, while the third continued training but didn't track their nutrition at all. Now, after 10 weeks, both of the groups tracking their nutrition gained over 2 pounds of lean mass while losing fat, whereas the group who didn't track didn't see any meaningful change in either direction. Which is why Ray will track everything using our Built With Science app, eating in a slight deficit of 2,300 calories per day to burn fat while eating at least 120 grams of protein to fuel muscle growth at the same time.

I had quite a bit of energy in the gym today.

I pushed like pretty hard.

I don't know if it's the test because I do feel like some fire in me.

I want to just keep training.

And despite Ray's early suspicions, he was absolutely crushing it through his first week, pushing hard on all of his workouts and tracking every meal.

Feel like I'm a little more cut or maybe just look a bit more fuller.

But I still had one major problem to solve. You see, when I gave Ray his starting body fat on day 1—

Your body fat percentage is 19.4%.

Oh, no way.

Wow.

I thought I was—

You don't sound too happy right now.

Uh, 'cause I thought like after 90 days I'll be under 10, but now thinking about it, probably not. Maybe like 13%.

But when he spoke to my producer on day 1, he had some unrealistic expectations as to how his weight would change throughout the process.

I'm hoping, you know, as much muscle as we can get. I'm hoping to be around like 180. 190 would be nice. 190. Good luck, man. Thank you.

Which sounds great, except Ray currently weighs 156 pounds. And to go from almost 20% body fat down to 12%, he's definitely going to have to lose weight. In fact, for him to end up at 180 pounds and 12% body fat, he would need to gain roughly 30 pounds of muscle while losing fat at the same time. Now, on real steroids, you can actually gain muscle so fast that even though you're losing fat, the scale is going up. But for a natural trained lifter like Ray, that's gonna be virtually impossible, which is a big problem for my plan. So on day 10, I enlisted our head engineer to create a special kind of scale for Ray. This is a $20 scale from Amazon, but with a little bit of rewiring, we can tell exactly how much he weighs and we can control exactly what weight we want him to see. The plan is simple. Every week we increase the number Ray saw by about 1 pound. So even if he's actually losing weight, He'd think the steroids are helping him build muscle so fast that his weight is staying the same or even going up. And the best part is we still get Ray's real weight behind the scenes. And so his Built With Science app can adjust his calories based on his actual progress while Ray had no idea what was actually happening.

All right, so right now I am at 161.4 pounds. Put me over 200 pounds. I'm sick of being victim weight. Oh, buddy. 212 pounds. Let's go. Look at this. When anybody asks me how much I weigh, this is what I'm telling them. 211.7. Sweet. It works. It works so well that I want one for my own house. This is going to connect via Bluetooth to your Built With Science app.

Oh, wow.

Should make it easier, man.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

Let me know how you like it if it makes it easier.

Guilty as I feel about deceiving Ray, I do have to remind myself of the mission at hand. Plus, if Ray fully believes he's taking the real thing and he's convinced his body is actually responding to it, We might actually see steroid-like results. That's because almost everything we're doing in this experiment has actually been done one time before. You see, back in 1972, researchers recruited well-trained college athletes, and for the first 8 weeks, the researchers just put them on a standardized training program and tracked their progress. And during this time, their bench improved by an average of 10 pounds while their squat improved by 6 pounds. But for the next 4 weeks, they were given the secret sauce, a placebo that they were told was an approved steroid. And within these 4 weeks, their bench increased by almost 30 pounds and their squat by 40 pounds. That's 3 to 7 times greater gains in half the time, even after the initial gains were made. Now we'll see what happens with Ray, but so far it sounds like the placebo effect is definitely kicking in, and not just in the gym.

Even like the other day, I was like at the butcher shop. The guy like put all the meat in the bag, in a bag, and like put it in like a container for me. It like slipped off the counter and fell. I quickly went and grabbed it before it hit the ground, and everybody was like, holy, you're so fast, you're like Spider-Man.

Holly, you are so fast, you are like Spider-Man.

I mean, it's working.

But just as I thought we were in the clear, we hit another problem. When we looked at Ray's scale data, we quickly realized someone else was also using the scale, which doubled the chance our scale manipulations could be noticed.

And even worse, 3 weeks into the experiment, Oh my God, guys, we have completely lost the feed. We haven't had a single weigh-in in the past 4 days, which means we have to get him back here without him realizing what's going on.

Fortunately, I did have one good excuse to bring Ray back, as we were just about to hit his 30-day mark, which is when I told him we'd be upping his dose from 1 pill every other day to 1 pill daily. So here's the plan: invite Ray back to the studio and tell him our team needs to replace the battery.

He's downstairs. He's doing a 30-minute workout, okay? I don't know what's wrong with this, but you gotta fix it.

Okay, if I started with Jeremy, this would be my max. I haven't pulled this way yet. With the stuff we're taking, I feel like it's given me more power, given me more energy. Hopefully we can get this. Now I get why, uh, steroids is illegal in sports. Should I go heavier? What do you think?

Up to you.

Whatever you do, be loud as shit.

It gives you a different type of energy. It gives you, like, better performance. Your recovery is much better. You can work out 7 days a week. How's that? Because I don't think I'd be like that if I wasn't on steroids. I feel like I can do anything. I feel like I can fly.

No pressure, but he's got to go soon. Come on, which wire is it? All right, good news. We got the scale for you. Okay, from now on, just weigh yourself on the scale.

Okay.

Yeah.

Now, as her raised new dose, I ordered your next batch of stuff.

Yeah.

You seem a little concerned.

Oh no, no, I'm not concerned. Um, I feel like the days I do take it, I feel like those days I have like a bit more energy than the days I don't take it.

Well, now you have one every day. Every day.

Sweet.

But while the scale was now in the clear, what I didn't realize is I had already made the biggest mistake of our experiment. So you remember Remember how I said we were getting Ray's blood test on day 1? Well, because of a scheduling issue with the lab, we couldn't actually get him in until 2 weeks into the experiment, which created a big problem.

This is disappointing. So this is my test. For some fucking reason, this is where I'm at. This is the low, high. Honestly, I thought after a month of doing steroids, my test would be in like 900. I don't know, maybe I felt like a little fatigued or anything or something like that, but I never had like any problems below the waist. My shit always draws Up. It was always very hard. Never had a problem with not getting up. Never had a problem not being able to last. Never had a problem of not being able to go more than once. My exes can testify my shit worked fine.

And this is where a lot of guys like Ray get discouraged. They train for years, they don't see the results they want, they go get a blood test and they see that they're not at the high end of normal, and they assume testosterone is the reason they're stuck. But as long as you're within the normal range, being slightly higher or lower doesn't actually seem to make a huge difference for muscle growth. In fact, many pro-natural bodybuilders have testosterone levels that are completely average or even slightly below. Even many of our app members who think their hormones are a problem are proven wrong as soon as we help them dial in their training and nutrition. But that said, if you do hop on real steroids, your testosterone is actually pushed well above the natural range. And because Ray believes he's already been on them, his blood test results really got in his head.

Some days like today, you know, you see shit like this, testosterone is low. It just kind of demotivates you, you know? It makes you feel like this shit's not working and this is kind of pointless.

Now, I tried to tell Ray it was just one test and that it was still too early for the pills to fully kick in.

It takes time for that to be reflected in the blood test.

But at this point, I know the experiment is on thin ice. And if I want Ray to keep believing this is working, I needed something big to show him on day 50 when it was time for his second DEXA scan.

I have the DEXA results here. On day one, your body fat percentage was 19.4%. Today, it's at 14.7%. Dude, now your lean mass—it went up 8.7 pounds.

No way!

Wow!

8.7 pounds. Oh wow!

To show how insane that is, this is the amount of lean mass a natural lifter can typically gain in just. But what's even crazier is this is what subjects on a starting dose of steroids typically gain over the same time period.

You're, you're not taking anything aside from like what I gave you, right?

No, no.

In terms of like nothing else?

Nothing.

No, no, no. You promise?

I promise you. Like what, like you mean more steroids or something?

Yeah, I don't know.

No, no, no, I'm not taking anything. No.

Okay. I'm just trying to wrap my head around like, Kyle, this is— that's crazy, dude. This, this is the craziest body recomposition I've ever seen.

Even on steroids?

I've never like worked with somebody on steroids. I'm so fucking proud of you, dude. I'm so proud of you, man.

And while there is a chance Ray could be pulling his own trick on me, I did find something that helps explain what we're seeing. Ray explained that about a month before reaching out to me, he actually just had his appendix removed, which meant he had to take about 4 weeks completely off the gym. And most research suggests you can regain muscle in roughly half the time it took to lose it. Which likely explains at least half of the lean mass gains Ray was able to gain. But even then, Ray's progress is still remarkable, especially given how much fat he lost at the same time. But now that most of his muscle regain should be accounted for, we should hopefully be able to see the true effect of Ray's placebo in the second half of our experiment. It's gonna make me push harder.

It's gonna make me stick to my diet and be even more on top of my diet. And maybe I'll even cut out that one.

But even though Ray is excited, I'm nervous because at the end of the experiment, I'll be asking him to make a choice: continue training naturally or go down the path he initially wanted. That is the exact choice I'm going to give him, which gives me just 50 more days to convince Ray to stay natty.

My energy has been really good. I'm still pushing just like I was doing before. I actually feel like maybe the testosterone is actually just kicking in.

With Ray more motivated than ever coming out of our check-in, I was confident he was going to crush his final stretch in this journey.

I've been dieting, dieting pretty good, finding out new meals, finding out healthier foods to eat.

But as impressive as Ray's progress has been through the first 50 days, getting to 12% body fat is not going to be easy. In fact, my team and I recently analyzed over 9,000 DEXA scans from American men. And out of all those people, how many do you think were below 12% body fat? The correct answer is 1. The physique Ray is chasing would put him in the top 0.1% of the population. In fact, at 14.7% body fat, Ray is already in the top 2% of leanness. But the thing is, when you scroll social media, the physiques that should be 1 in 10,000 start to feel normal.

I go on Instagram and everybody you see is like under 10% body fat. And then that kind of like makes me feel like I still have a lot of work to do and I'm not there yet.

It gets in my head too. I mean, when I'm on social media and I see these amazing shredded physiques, I compare it to myself and I can often feel disappointed about where I'm at and my progress. For someone like Ray, who has spent years seeing bodies like that everywhere, and then nowadays sees more and more people openly talking about and glamorizing steroids without always showing the risks, I can understand why he started thinking that maybe that's what he's missing. But once you take steroids, if you come off, your natural testosterone often drops, which can lead to fatigue, recovery issues, and of course libido issues. Which I'd bet would be a big scare for Ray.

My exes can testify my shit worked fine.

And the scary thing is, for some people, their natural testosterone production doesn't ever fully bounce back. And the real danger is that steroids seem to have a dose-response relationship with muscle gain, meaning the more you take, the more muscle you can gain. Which for certain personality types can become a dangerous trap, because as steroid use increases, so do the risks. Not only do hair loss, acne, and fertility issues become more likely, but so does your risk of heart failure. That's because steroids don't just grow your muscles; they actually grow your heart too, and that can create all sorts of issues. In fact, in a recent autopsy report of bodybuilders who died prematurely, the average age of death was just 36 years old. Their heart weight was 74% heavier than the average man's. And I'm hoping this transformation can convince Ray he's better off never taking those risks. But it also makes me wonder if Ray does manage to hit his 12% goal, will he actually be satisfied? I just feel fat.

I feel like. I haven't really lost much weight.

And how will he respond when I have to tell him the truth? Fortunately, in the final week of Ray's program, I got an invitation to join Ray and his family for dinner, which would be my best chance to try to figure out how he might react when it's time for me to come clean.

Hey, Jeremy. What up, man?

Nice to see you again. Nice to see you too, dude.

How are you doing? Good.

This is my mom. Hello. Actually, I am amazed with the progress we see.

He transformed totally.

Not only him, I got the benefit too.

And given that Ray's mom was tracking her weight using our special scale, she had actually made even more progress than she thought.

Hoping to get to 145, but I never could. Always was 150 above. But now when he told me, Mom, this is wrong what you do, you should change this to this, and I did some change and I see! Within less than a month!

I've worked with a lot of people and he's definitely one of, if not the most disciplined person that I've worked with.

He is. He is.

Yeah, this is where all the transformation happened. This past like month has been a little hard with like dieting, and sometimes I felt like I still had a lot of fats. But I mean, I'm still pushing, I'm still working out. My like maximum is not going up more. Like I said, I didn't really track my calories or proteins and stuff like that. After working with you and using your app, That's like very helpful too, by the way, to track all your food. I've learned that like 80% is into the diet.

But you haven't told her that you're taking steroids?

No. At one point she was a little skeptical about it and like asking if I was, because she saw I was like making pretty like big progress. I just kind of denied it. Me and her, we watch YouTube together. We watch your videos together.

What's gonna happen when the YouTube—

I'll tell her when the videos come out, you know.

So do you guys have a lot of family here?

No, no family here. Just us. Just these 3.

So most of your family is in Europe right now?

Yeah.

Where exactly?

Sweden and Norway.

When's the last time that you saw them?

In 2010.

That long ago? Yeah.

Is there a reason that you've never gone back? It's just like—

Pretty expensive to go there.

Yeah.

And secretly after dinner, to show my appreciation for Ray's hard work and his mom for welcoming me with open arms, I wanted to surprise them with a trip back to see their family for the first time in over 10 years.

This is for these are for you guys.

Oh wow! Oh my god! Thank you so much. That's amazing.

Thank you so much. You guys, you guys honestly. Thank you so much. You deserve it. And I could tell. Thank you.

Oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much.

I'm gonna be honest, guys. My perception of Ray has completely changed throughout this experiment. He's a genuine dude, and I've actually grown a bond to him. And my biggest fear is that when I tell him on the final day that I've been deceiving him this whole time, that friendship is just going to be completely shattered.

And with day 100 officially here, it's time to see how far he's come before revealing the truth behind our experiment, starting with his strength, where he went from benching 3 reps at 185 pounds on day 1 all the way up to 8 clean reps with the same weight. Meanwhile, his squats with the same weight jumped from 6 reps up to 10. His pull-ups, which were already an impressive 16 reps on day 1, climbed to 20 clean reps. As per Ray's blood work, his testosterone actually increased by 22%, which could be just day-to-day fluctuation or a result of his improved diet rather than the placebo actually doing some magic. Which just leaves our most important question: did Ray reach his goal of 12% body fat. And how will he respond when I have to tell him the truth?

Before I show you the result, can I see what's under the shirt? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't seen you since last time. Damn, dude, what? Look at this. So that's what your mom was talking about when she said the abs are just— oh damn, yo, damn, dude, let's go. 19.4% body fat on day one, and in 100 days, your body fat is 11.9%. Really? Okay. All right. We got there. Bro, you hit your goal. What do you mean?

I know I did it. Yeah. It's good. I thought I'd be at like 10, 11, but yeah. I love the way that was said, dude.

Dude, do you know how?

Do you know how rare that is, man? Do you know how rare that is? That's actually like 0.1%.

In the second half of our experiment, Ray's muscle gains definitely did slow down compared to the first half, but because Ray was already under 15% body fat by day 50, it makes building muscle while losing fat far less likely. So the fact that he was still able to build some muscle at this stage is extremely impressive. And so if you're feeling stuck right now and you want to try the personalized training and nutrition plan that's not just worked for Ray, but thousands of our app members, then you can try 2 weeks of it completely free by scanning this QR code or heading to builtwithscience.com. But for now, it's time for me to come clean with Ray.

Before you go, I do have one thing I want to show you. Do you remember that contract that you signed back on day 1? I want you to read all of this out loud.

The participant understands and agrees that they may receive an inactive placebo. The participant further understands and agrees that no anabolic steroids, no illegal substances, no controlled substances, and no prescription performance-enhancing drugs will be provided by the producer/trainer company. So what, I wasn't— this wasn't steroids? I did this naturally?

The pills that you've been taking?

Yeah.

This is flour.

No way. What? Are you fucking with me? Are you serious, man? No way.

Everything has been all you. It is— everything has been all you. 100% natural. Just the power of your mind and literally just fixing your training nutrition.

Wow. Wow. I mean, that's insane. That's just flour in there? What? Yeah, but I mean, that's surprising, man.

That's How do you think your mom and brother are gonna react?

Oh, they'll be so much happier because I'm gonna have to break this news to my mom one time, one day.

I mean, that one day was gonna be when this video's out. So mom, if you're watching right now, I hope, I hope you're happy and I hope you're proud of everything that your son did naturally. Still, when I told you the 11.9%, you didn't seem too happy. It seemed like you were eager for more. And so I do want to put your words to the test. Okay. And I have one more thing to show you.

All right.

These are real steroids. If you still really want to take steroids, I'm going to try my best to find a professional who can help you do that as safely as possible. There's obviously still risks. It's not something I recommend, but the option is there for you. Or you can continue taking my flower pills and training naturally. So there's 2 options, and ultimately The choice is yours. What's it gonna be?

I mean, this whole time I thought I was on steroids. Such a surprise that I've got to where I wanted without steroids. So I'm not sure. I'm scared of the side effects. I don't want to decrease my lifespan. I want to be healthy. I want to live long. I think I'll pass on the steroids and stick with your flowers. Final decision? Yeah, yeah. I mean, let's go, man.

That's music to my ears, bro. I'm so proud of you, man. I love you, man. Thank you, man. I mean, you're literally the freaking example of what people can accomplish if they just dial in training, nutrition, and you don't need this stuff.

What we did, I can be proud of this video. I'll never be like have any guilty feeling about it. So it's amazing. I appreciate you so much for everything you've taught me. You changed my life. You changed my thinking. You changed my mentality, you know. Yeah, hey! Bro, that's amazing, man. Thank you.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for deceiving you. All right, subscribe. Peace.