Fitness YouTuber Jeremy Ethier ran a 100-day experiment on a fan named Ray, giving him flour-filled capsules he told him were oral roids, in order to prove that natural training and nutrition could deliver the results Ray believed only PEDs could produce.
Ray had messaged Ethier asking for help getting on PEDs, citing physiques like Hugh Jackman’s and bodybuilder Anatoly as his goal.
“I haven’t been able to really achieve it naturally,” Ray said. Ethier, who says he has never taken roids “nor would I recommend them,” believed he could get Ray to his goal without them and set up the experiment instead.
To make the deception convincing, Ethier had Ray sign a waiver that, buried on page two, disclosed he might receive an inactive placebo. Ray did not read it closely. Ethier then gave him capsules filled with flour, telling him to take one every other day before increasing to a daily dose after 30 days.
Progress was tracked with DEXA scans, blood work and strength tests. Ethier also rebuilt Ray’s training program, shifting him from a once-per-week “bro split” to training each muscle twice weekly, correcting his bench form to reduce momentum, and having him track calories and protein through the Built With Science app.
To sustain the illusion, Ethier’s team rigged a bathroom scale to display manipulated numbers, since Ray losing fat while gaining muscle meant his true weight was not rising the way he expected.
“Whenever you ask me how much I weigh is what I’m telling,” Ethier told him after showing a fabricated 211.7 lb (96 kg) reading.
By day 50, Ray had dropped from 19.4% to 14.7% body fat while gaining 8.7 lbs (3.9 kg) of lean mass, a result Ethier attributed partly to muscle regained after Ray’s earlier appendix surgery. Ray’s own blood work, showing testosterone on the low end of normal, temporarily discouraged him.
“It just kind of demotivates you,” he said. “It makes you feel like this not working.”
By day 100, Ray had reached 11.9% body fat, hit his goal, and improved his bench, squat and pull-up numbers significantly. Ethier then revealed the truth, reading Ray the waiver clause and showing him the flour capsules.
“No way,” Ray said. “Everything has been all you,” Ethier told him. “100% natural.”
Given the choice between continuing with real roids or staying natural, Ray chose to stay natural. “I’m scared of the side effects,” he said. “I don’t want to decrease my lifespan. I want to be healthy. I want to live long.”
Ethier said the goal all along was to show Ray, and viewers with similar doubts, what dialed-in training and nutrition can achieve without the risks PEDs carry, including cardiac strain and fertility issues.
