“Basically everyone at that level was using something because there was this collective realization of what it took to look a certain way,” he said.
Mr. Boulet soon moved to Las Vegas to pursue a full-time career in fitness, and he started posting videos poking fun at other bodybuilders and influencers on social media. But after competing for a few years and increasing his dosages of different PEDs, he realized he was exhausted. He worried, too, about the severe effects of steroid use, which include cardiovascular risks, liver issues and kidney failure.
“I just didn’t want to push it further and end up cutting years off my life,” he said.
He stopped taking the drugs in 2019. By his own definition, though, Mr. Boulet is still not “natty.” To this day he takes TRT, a standard treatment for longtime steroid users who need to balance their hormone levels after years of elevated testosterone production.
He runs his own supplement brand that sells selective androgen receptor modulators, or SARMs, drugs that mimic steroids. Many bodybuilders swear by them, but the drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are banned in athletic competitions monitored by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
His followers who buy his supplements, Mr. Boulet said, are “not natural” either.
“I think about my son and the culture of fake bodies, steroids, and the machine profiting off people’s insecurities that keeps getting bigger and bigger,” said Sean McGill, 40, who follows Mr. Boulet on Instagram. Mr. Boulet’s antics can occasionally rub him the wrong way, he said, “but at least he is trying to be honest about what he does and what he takes.”
Training the eye
Over the years, Mr. Boulet has taught his viewers to spot the telltale signs that someone is on the juice. “You can tell by the size of their traps, usually” — the trapezius muscle that runs along the backside of the neck and connects to the shoulders. “That’s one of the first ones to show when people decide to hop onto PEDs,” he said.