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In my formal post about how to reduce belly fat, I alluded to the fact that the fitness community is an unhealthy one.¹ This is a big surprise, isn't it? From the rate at which bodybuilders die from heart disease to the number of fitness influencers currently living with unhealthy body fat percentages, you begin to wonder why they don't separate health from the fitness industry.

But, It's called the health and fitness industry but those who are deep in the fitness industry know that some athletes are using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

From Adamma to Dwane Jonsone to Sam Sulek and the African Body Builders who just have "West African Genetics". There appears to be something wrong with us that we can't add 10kg every year from working out. Or those who seem to be reducing the gains we are making at the gym. ²

Recently there has been the trend of Ozempic taking over the weight loss world and while it is a prescription medication for Diabetes that can cause weight loss, there is nothing stopping those who have the money and influence from getting these medications and making the rest of us look like lazy slobs even though some people workout daily and are on very strict diets.³

Eventually, we drop out of the race because those who we see ahead of us seem to reaching into deeper sources of inspiration that we can never reach. But, their games are becoming more and more clear as few begin to become more open about these secrets.

Picture Source and Video Source

I started taking bodybuilding very seriously during the pandemic. I had connections to get trained by professional powerlifters. Their gym was very empty thinking about it right now. There was one rack and one bench press set and that was it.

We would lift for long hours. I would come as early as 6 or 7 am and there was always someone in the gym and I would leave about 8 or 9 am. I read Bigger Leaner Stronger before then. So I knew it was just as important to stimulate your muscles as it was to get food and have enough rest.

Even when I left the gym these Powerlifters would still be there pounding weights, sometimes taking a little break to eat and get back to pounding weights. Because they are Powerlifters also, they are staying in those low lifting ranges of 2-3 reps per set and going unlimited number of sets.⁴

Then they would talk in hush tones about getting themselves injected with setroids. Given that it was a multiethnic gathering, they couldn't necessarily hide it with too much slang or language too difficult for me to understand.

That was the first time I had a feeling of an unfair advantage. Years later I even started entertaining the idea of going on a few cycles of steroids.

Imagine! and I was a medical student at the time!! How would some random guy feel while receiving all this information? I've later reviewed the health risks associated with steroid use and I just want to be alive to see my kid's kids⁶.)...There there is cystic acne and the growth of breasts.⁷

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Before social media, some of the images we are currently being exposed to were simply inaccessible. While times have changed in good ways compared to how things were in the past if you only consider just FaceTime and the fact that I can talk to @belemo almost every day. He may be in the UK but I'm in his pocket. But also in my brother's pocket competing for attention is every breaking news about his favourite football team (Arsenal), social media news controversies and the like.

All that information has to get him exhausted before I can become a first choice of information. Of course, @belemo is an adult and it doesn't have to follow this pattern but the point is the competition for attention has become more and more complex than it has ever been.

I remember taking long taxi rides to queue up for a cheap payphone to talk to my father when he was in the UK. It would be ridiculous for our father to make us go through that and still ignore us.

Back then we had never seen a person with a bodybuilder's frame in our lives. But in recent times, either because of my work as a trainer or because of something else, they appear to be more common.

Every bodybuilder in this new age is in constant competition with Dwane Johnson. Eventually, they will find out that the ability to train to attain or maintain a body like that requires cutting corners and unscrupulous behaviour.

If none of this concerns you then at least it should bother you that those who are getting trapped under this weight are not just adults. Young boys from the age of 16 are being given this as an option for a way of life.

In this YouTube video⁷, a masked drug dealer talks about selling steroids to a 16-year-old boy. The typical age he gets orders from is ages 16 to 24 years.

The average life expectancy for bodybuilders is 47.7 years, which is less than the expectancy for Nigerians. The reason for all of this is cardiovascular causes.⁸

The risk with heart disease when using steroids is that steroids can lead to hypertension, alterations in lipid metabolism and coronary atherosclerosis. Steroid use is also related to cardiomyopathy and cardiac conduction pathologies that lead to sudden cardiac death.⁹

There are also the short-term effects of having steroids from an unlicensed dealer. There is no form of insurance that the drug was properly prepared and the risk of sepsis is high.

The Critical Care in 2017 established that the risk of sepsis was twice as high for steroid users than non-steroid users. ¹⁰

Another aspect of all this is the fact that there is such a thing as an unhealthily low body fat.¹¹ A body fat percentage of between 2-5% for men is considered unhealthy and for a man you start having a weakened immune system and you start to lose your drive for sex (libido). For women, it is somewhere around 10-13%, at this point she starts to have menstrual problems amenorrhea in particular alongside immune problems. ¹²

Steroids are the drugs I know about well enough to write about. The other Performance-enhancing drugs are oblivious to me but are not without their side effects and adverse effects.

Old Zoomed in Picture of me
Transformation video from TikTok

A lot of fitness influencers do not care about the there are people trying to attain the body image they're putting out as the standard for everyone to follow. Young people are being flooded with these images and as time goes on it is bound to get worse if we don't keep talking about it.

Among bodybuilders, life expectancy is low because of steroid use. The use of steroids has become trivial even among Nigerian powerlifters/bodybuilders.⁸

Cardiovascular health ironically is the reason many who seek health seek fitness but it is the main cause of death for bodybuilders makes you wonder why they are used as a representation of perfect health.

Let's not forget the weakened immune system and poor reproductive function associated with low body fat percentages.

So, Get out there do your thing and don't let anybody stop you, even if the person trying to stop you is you. Subscribe and Like for More!!

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Reference

1. So You Want To Lose Belly Fat?
2. Maxinutrition
3. People.com
4. T-Nation
5. Healio.com
6. Gynecomastia: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment
7. Roid Renaissance: The UK’s Steroid Epidemic | High Society
8. Renal Andurology News
9. Glucocorticoid Signaling in the Heart: A Cardiomyocyte Perspective
10. Association of baseline steroid use with long-term rates of infection and sepsis in the REGARDS cohort
11. Medical New Today
12. What Is My Ideal Body Fat Percentage?

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