 Alright everyone, what is up and welcome back to another video. My name is Jacob McDonald and I'm going to discuss a topic that I wouldn't normally discuss on this channel but seeing as I've just competed, which I never really thought would happen again, but I have competed on a bodybuilding stage this year in 2020 twice actually and four times in total in my life. I'm still a lifetime natural athlete that means drug-free, performance enhancing drug-free. I do smoke marijuana and I'm open about that so if you think I'm not a natural athlete or a natural bodybuilder or a drug-free drug-free bodybuilder anymore because I smoke weed well well I guess this is obsolete but basically it's not because I'm talking about steroids today. I'm not talking about recreational drugs I'm talking about steroids you know which can be just as addictive I'm I'm lead to believe. So today's video, the title of this video is how I almost began taking steroids but never did and there's a story to it. There's a story that's that's progressed as I get older you know I'm almost 30 now I probably you know I'm gonna begin this story thinking about seriously taking steroids when I was about 24 so almost six years ago now you know I was 24 that wasn't early by any means but God I mean my knowledge I didn't even know about steroids when I started so thank God I had a little bit of naivety about me and I saw guys in the gym that were huge and vascular and ripped and I thought well I can get that eventually I mean if I train hard enough and eat well enough and do this for long enough and be consistent enough I can get there and that was my genuine attitude for the first six years of of of lifting first five years of lifting whether that lifting was considered serious or you know consistent by any means is you know is I guess questionable but certainly my my my underlying attitude and an opinion of any impressive physique that I saw whether it be in the gym or on the street or on the internet I firmly believed you know I guess it was I guess it was a little bit of narcissism it might have been on my part thinking that I can do anything and thinking that I'm the man you know and thinking that fuck if they look like that I can do it one day not knowing and you know not not having the knowledge that a lot of these physics not all okay not all because there are genetic outliers out there but a lot of these physiques that are really impressive you know have been built somewhat or are being maintained somewhat through the use of exogenous hormones such as testosterone and different different steroids so I guess I guess it all started back when I was 24 I began becoming obsessed with my testosterone level I began believing that I had a low testosterone level I got a couple of tests done my testosterone came back as normal possibly on the lower side of normal definitely not on the higher side definitely not on the higher side and I guess I guess I was sort of hoping that either my test would be like off the charts low or off the charts high and anything in the middle wasn't good enough for me you know I thought I thought I thought I want to get on testosterone I want my testosterone level to be jacked up so I can start making some crazy gains and start looking like all these guys that are so impressive that's how I felt but I was still I was still really I was still holding on to the fact that I was a natural I was still proud of that and and you know in the early days I used to preach it I used to preach hard in fact I probably used to hate on steroid users well not so much steroid users the ones that hit it you know the fake natties I began hating on but then at the end of the day that just fade it faded it faded with maturity it faded with age with time and I began you know taking on the opinion of anyone can do anything you know you're entitled to your you know you're entitled to your opinions on the subject you're entitled to do whatever the hell you want but I started forming opinions on steroids and on people and on I guess practices around taking steroids that I can then you know I guess tell people about such such things like make sure you fucking train five years at least hard heavy in the gym naturally to see what your body can do you know to see what kind of genetics you've got you know if you were to go down the steroid route start with a small dose of testosterone no not 500 milligrams fucking something like 250 get blood work done before you start take 250 milligrams of test for six or 12 weeks and see what your fucking body does mate see what your body does physically and also with your blood work I'm telling you your test testosterone to be jacked up you will put on 10 pounds of muscle like that it's crazy shit and you don't need much anyways guys I'm coming to you as a lifetime natural I still haven't taken anything I'm not saying it's out of the question but I haven't and so there are safe ways to do it I'm not completely against it I do have this this sort of I guess burning feeling in the back of my head sometimes that I'd love to as a man as a capable man I'd love to feel you know that superhuman feeling and strength and power at least once in my life but it hasn't happened yet anyways guys those feelings I had way back then and that's that's why I became not only interested but but tempted to go down that route so yeah I got my testosterone checked a couple of times I discussed it with the doctor you know I was looking at getting TRT I was looking at possibly getting a doctor's prescribed testosterone you know I was looking at you know hopefully my thoughts were from these tests my tests will come back low I will be an eligible candidate for TRT I was 24 years of age 24 and I was willing guys that's the thing okay even steroids TRT I wanted to do it through a doctor okay I wanted to do it you know right I wanted to do my blood work properly I wasn't ever gonna buy my testosterone or steroids from the black market so if I couldn't get a low testosterone level reading from the doctor it wasn't gonna happen but I was 24 guys and I was willing I was willing if it was slightly low if that doctor agreed to put me on TRT I was willing to do it and I was willing to shut down my natural level for the rest of my life and be on an injection or a fucking a gel or something for the rest of my life just so I can have a few more muscle gains at age 24 guys that is the kind of I hate to say it but that's the kind of decision people make and at the age 18 can you imagine the kind of decisions people make so thank God I've made it to my late 20s and you know I've seen it all I followed the YouTube fitness industry for fucking 10 years I've literally I've seen it all I've watched all the videos you guys have and now I'm here to give you guys my own opinion I've been talking for 10 minutes I don't know how the fuck I've done that anyways guys test level was fine I then I began looking into psalms because I thought no you know what I well it seems stupid now but I thought well I'm not gonna go and buy black market steroids let me go and buy black market pills I mean you know you started hearing of of the lesser side effects or no side effects you know steroid like results with no side effects and I was 25 at that point still obviously looking into options to enhance my lifting but possibly down a route that wasn't going to suppress me for my entire life and that's when I started looking at psalms thank God I didn't take the man because people started you know making videos about how safe they were but then slowly but surely these videos started coming out about people who were suppressing their their their testosterone level through just taking psalms and also through you know they were getting testosterone based side effects only on psalms you know what I mean steroid based side effects on psalms and it's like well shit man that's dodgy that is dodgy and and and and I never ended up doing them I literally had an order from an enhanced athlete in the car ready to go two bottles I think it was 60 or 120 days worth of psalms and I did not click buy I didn't end up doing it so there you go no testosterone from the doctor and no psalms and so at the end of 2015 I decided man you know what I'm gonna forget about this shit for a while I'm just gonna keep doing my thing keep being natural probably not preach it as much because I felt well I mean I can I seriously considered going down that route right so I'm not gonna be this guy that preaches natural bodybuilding as the only way because I know that it's not so anyways we move on that was the end of 2015 got through 2016 began a video series on this YouTube channel could make called making gains which covered me over a 365 day period bulking up for nine of those months and then cutting down for three of them so please go back in my video library and check those out that was basically the first time that I went real hard on YouTube you know really trying to put my put effort into content and create a really decently sized video series for people to watch and so I think there was like 150 episodes I went really hard and I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot but you know at the end of that I wanted to compete again but I I still was dealing with my gyno so I it's yeah funny funnily enough you know I've never taken any steroids but I had gyno came in through puberty as a lot of guys get it probably the age of 11 you know I can't really remember before being 11 years of age having to worry about it or maybe that's just when people started teasing me about it like honestly I don't know but I went through a lot of shit at at intermediate and high school because of it and so it was always something I wanted to get sorted I did compete for the first time on a bodybuilding stage in 2015 I did get quite lean but the gyno was still there and it pissed me off and I said to myself you know whether I take steroids or not I'm never getting back on a bodybuilding stage unless I get the surgery unless I get the shit sorted so it took me another two years to get that done and at the end of 2017 I finally got my gyno comastia surgery so the reason I bring up that is because another form of not steroid but drug that I was offered to try and reduce my gyno without the need for surgery which would never have worked because my gyno was not steroid induced it came through puberty okay it was never gonna work but I was asked if I wanted to take letrasal which is a extremely powerful anti estrogen and I once again was so tempted I was so tempted I was like fuck man I don't want to get the surgery I want to still say I'm natural so to speak but then I started thinking you know I'm not gonna be able to say I'm natural I'm not I've taken something and then I started looking at the side effects of taking letrasal like fuck that shit that stuff would have really fucked me up mentally I would have started feeling like absolute shit bro and all these bodybuilders that take these strong anti estrogens in the the final part of their prep to counter to counteract the the increase in things like training stuff which will not only increase your tests but also increase your estrogen so they cut that out completely with letrasal something strong like letrasal and and the way that people feel on that shit I've you know I've I've heard it's terrible I've heard you know yeah we think that we only need testosterone as a man but that's not true so anyway that was the third sort of inkling I had to take something that wasn't legal certainly not away from adopters prescription so you know I was off with that and I decided no you know what I'm not going to I'm gonna keep my guy no I'm gonna get through it and then at the end of 2017 after knowing that okay I'm not gonna take steroids because my test level is fine I'm not gonna take psalms because they're too dodgy and I'm not gonna take letrasal because I'm gonna have the surgery I got the surgery end of 2017 boom a lot of you guys would have seen that surgery video series in fact if you haven't seen it it was a fucking disaster and I'm literally sitting here November the 10th 2020 almost three years post-surgery and it's still not perfect and it probably never will be but I'm glad I had it done so there you go that was that that's how that's basically how I almost started taking steroids so sadly after that surgery and having the the recovery go so bad I probably spent the next year like seriously like in and out of the gym like the worst I'd been in the previous five years my consistency was shot I lost motivation I felt like I you know my chest was shit this thing that I'd waited for for so long you know went like shit and it really affected me so eventually probably halfway through 2018 I did get back in the gym and up until early 2020 the probably the next 18 months or so it was really stopped start really stopped start in the gym and and I suffered from some severe anxiety and depression now I'm not saying I actually don't know exactly why that was but I feel like a lot of it was my situation at the time my environment so I guess the fourth time that I decided like so I guess there's there's more than three times there's four times in total that I've actually considered taking steroids or getting them and the fourth and final time was when I was really in my depth of depression due to my circumstances in my environment and I went to the doctor and I said I said I tried to convince the doctor that I was suffering all of the symptoms of low test Ostrone I'm 29 years of age or 28 years of age but I've got low T and this doctor didn't even give me a test this doctor fucking refused he said no I'm not gonna give you a test to check your hormones and I was like what I can come in here I'm allowed to tell you exactly what I want and he ended up honestly convincing me that it wasn't the low testosterone he went through all of these signs and symptoms that I didn't have and so I walked out of there thinking man you've probably done me a favor mate you're a real fucking champion and so I went on went on my way you know forgot about it again forgot about my test level depression still hung around but at the end of the day once I did change my environment once I did change my situation the depression started to lift and so I then I realized that I realized that you know I've probably still got that medium to low-range test testosterone level but it's not you don't need steroids Jacob you certainly don't and I proved that to myself this year because I jumped back on a bodybuilding stage in decent condition with a decent amount of muscle as a lifetime natural and I tell you what that meant a whole lot more to me than any show I would have ever done enhanced so guys if you are considering it for any of those reasons please take my advice I would say do what I say not what I do but in this one I'm gonna say do what I do what I do to because you know I'm still I'm proud to say I am proud to say I don't preach anymore but I am proud to say that I'm a lifetime natural and look I don't get asked very often at all if I take gear or if I have taken gear but on the one occasion every now and then when someone says look are you natural or not or you know do you know where I can get some steroids or something like that in fact that never happens guys that's a fucking straight up lie but some people have asked you know am I natural and if that ever happens I get the smile I get the biggest smile I've ever had on my face and I say yes I am thank you for asking I'm gonna take that as a massive massive compliment so I guess my goal moving forward as a lifetime natural is to start making people think that I'm on steroids you know what I mean just through the way that I look so I guess I'm just gonna have to keep on keeping on keep on training stay in shape the fastest way guys I'll leave you with this the fastest way the fastest the most foolproof way without any drugs to make yourself look like you've just put on 10 pounds of muscle is to lose 10 pounds of fat and with that being said I'll see in the next one hope you've enjoyed the video guys a little bit of an insight into the way I think it's a touchy subject hopefully will bring in a few views if you have enjoyed the video or you've got something from it please hit like if you want to subscribe that would be hugely appreciated and I will see you in the next one peace out everybody