LegendaryLife Blog

I saw this video yesterday about what happens to male chickens (chicks) in the poultry industry as was thoroughly surprised to say the least. I had *assumed* (a very bad word and set of ideas) that, like cows and other animals, they were fattened-up for slaughter like their female counterparts. It still isn’t pretty, but this is how our food supply is grown. Nope, these baby male chicks, a few minutes after being “hatched” by a machine get their beaks cut and then are ground-up alive.

Does this video convince me to become a Vegan or Vegetarian? Nope, but I can’t say I eat much chicken anyhow as, although healthy, it just doesn’t taste good in my opinion. Salmon or tuna are far healthier in every way than chicken.

At least the females get to live right? Well, give this video to watch their fate. I’m not sure if it’s much better then that of male chickens. If I had a choice, I would ask to be born as a male chicken to be honest.

Symptom of a larger problem

Alright, that was disturbing wasn’t it! Well, this is nothing compared to what humans are doing on a daily basis across various fields, from open pit mining activities to the incredible waste involved with clear cutting entire forests or deep ocean trawling. The reason why our species has done so well on Earth is because we are very good at controlling information (preventing others from seeing the truth), gathering once a resource is found (exploiting it with little regard as to the consequences that may happen to others) and continuing this myth regarding the importance of ourselves above all other creatures.

We have a serious Napolean complex, species wide, when it comes to the rest of the natural world. I sure hope that if aliens ever come to visit us, they don’t treat us the same way we treated Earth or its other living citizens.

What is the solution?

I think videos like this, and there are no lack of them relating to just about every intensive industry out there, should be used as a warning. I don’t believe in God nor any type of higher being but I do believe that what you sow, you will reap. As such, treating life no different than if it was a rock has and will catch-up to us big time in the future. What can we do to solve this situation? I think the first is a return to community based farming practices. For instance, it makes no sense why eggs need to be shipped all around the country (or world for that matter)… setting-up small regional co-ops for plant and other nutritional requirements needs to go away from this industrial scale enterprise back into small ones where children can learn about the food they eat and the real work involved with traditional farming.

I have no problem eating chicken or other animals, I am not nor will I ever become a vegetarian, but this senseless, unnecessary cruelty we are so well at perpetrating really needs to stop.

Humans are worse!

Considering the trillions of dollars spent every year on technologies that are dedicated towards the destruction and killing of other people (the military), humans may treat other animals badly but we also invest in the capabilities of spreading this ability onto others of our own race! I don’t know of any other animal that, on a daily basis, tries to develop weapons that will more “easily” kill another of its species. Nature is cruel, but because of our evolved consciousness, instead of trying to reduce the amount happening around us, we seem hell-bent on bringing it up to a whole new level due to insecurities, failures and unfounded fears.

The Bottom Line

When humans lose touch with nature, industrial farming practices are able to thrive.

Long ago, before we had the luxury of convenient and grocery stores, modern agriculture and “civilization”, we use to have to hunt and gather each and everyday for our days food. Each day was filled with trying to live one more using nothing but our wit, strength and endurance. The reason our bodies are so impressive today is because of the work our ancestors did, each and everyday, in order to allow our species to conquer this planet.

I watched this video a long time ago and was incredibly impressed by the use of persistence to hunt down large prey. What was once common place among our species seems sadly foreign to me, I never had to “earn” my life like our ancestors. I believe this is the reason why our species suffers from depression, anxiety and invests in materialism instead of itself, we have lost touch with our inner senses and nothing quite fills that void like earned nutrition. Notice in this video, the guy isn’t 20 years old either, he is probably healthier than most people half his age… this guy, who never had a job his entire life, never owned anything of (our perceived) value and nor has any wealth to speak off has both my instant admiration and respect. We can truly be amazing animals when the desire and circumstances warrant them. I would feel honored to be able to do this, at least once, in my life.

Could you imagine having the mental and physical strength to run for 8 straight hours in the burning sun with nothing but a spear for your diner? Think about it.

Peter is now coming into his own, gaining confidence and starting to have a positive self-image… all great improvements but these didn’t happen because of his steroid use.

Episode 10 – Super Roid Brothers

• week 10 and Peter is now at 162.2 pounds
• Peter has replaced little pink pills with little yellow ones, Mr. Fantastic needs to knock some sense into him and get him to drop the orals for the injectables
• measurement woman is back, Peter now has 13 inch arms, 15 inch calves, 45 inch shoulders
• Peter is now consuming 3700 calories a day (no wonder he is gaining weight) as it’s double what he ate before!
• week 11: 166.2 pounds with 13.9% bodyfat
• Mr. Fantastic started-off seeming not to know anything about steroids but now, he seems to know more far more then he is letting on

Episode 11 – The Final Countdown

• week 12, Peter does look better than at the beginning
• day 84, Peter seems to have lost some weight or just looks “normal”, light can both giveth and taketh away
• at week 12, his bench press is now 125 pounds (from 65), neck is 15 inches (compared to 13 inches), shoulder 44.5 inches (before 42), 12.75 inch arms, 36 inch chest (from 33 week 1)
• Peter is impressed at how powerful of a life changer a small little tic-tac sized pill has had on his life (he still doesn’t realize he is responsible for the change, not the pill)
• day 84, three months later, he is now 169.2 pounds, up 31.2 pounds at 14% body fat (more than double what he had before)!
• Peter is still running around town without a t-shirt!
• Peter goes on PCT at the end of his cycle, after 3 weeks he now has gynecomastia (bitch tits) and is now at 165 pounds
• doctor says he is perfectly healthy now
• Mr. Fantastic says “steroids don’t kill people, stupid people on steroids kill themselves”.  I agree 100%!
• the first time I see him in a t-shirt at the gym lasts only a few seconds before he takes his shirt off again!
• Peter is now talking about another cycle already

Real information about steroids, fitness and diet

• Muscle memory is great… too bad it doesn’t last
• Why I decided not to take Anabolic Steroids
• Gaining Weight 101: Tips from a fellow Hard gainer
• LL Question: Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?
• Better Living Through Chemistry
• Taking Time Off and Muscle Memory

Buzvia: Steroids Saved My Life (Television Series)

I am crossing my fingers that Peter begins to acquire some common sense from people outside of his “Three Stooges” team. Once again, I am not a doctor and have no formal education other than my university biology degree and decades of studying health, fitness and nutrition.

Episode 7 – Peter Balboa

• day 47, dosage of steroids has been increased (from what to what I would like to know, even a % would be nice)
• Mr. Fantastic’s advice of not stacking on your first cycle is dead-on! He does know a thing or two about steroids… finally a real FACT in this entire series! The reason stacks (taking more than one steroid) during a cycle is a waste of time and money is because your receptors are clean so you are fine gaining on just testosterone, only people who have a few cycles under their belt stack
• more steroids = more food = more workouts = more stupidity = more chances of ending-up in the hospital with something being seriously torn = going back to the weight he started off with
• yet again, Peter is showing off his little bag of pills… let the liver and endocrine damage continue!
• Mr. Fantastic says people stacking on their first cycle are “fucking morons”, good advice! Now we know that Peter is NOT taking advice from Mr. Fantastic and in this instance, he really should have. Not only did Peter not know this vital piece of information but now he is switching around his cycle mid-stream… this train wrek is only getting worse!
• day 50, Peter says he is starting to have anger issues (???), this is nonesense
• his friend Davin slapped him in the face to which Peter said he was going to kill him, this isn’t ‘roid rage
• Peter is feeling bigger and stronger and is flowing with energy now, I am sure he could have achieved this without steroids at all, what happened is his body went from a state of stagnation into one of rejuvenation, this has more to do with exercise and eating well than steroids.
• Mr. Fantastic is really starting to sound like he knows his stuff! He states Sylvester Stalone was (is) on juice (HGH is what he has admitted so far) probably once he hit Rocky 2.
• Drinking raw eggs is a wonderful way to get sick, I did this a lot too but have since stopped, I cook my eggs now (maybe the stomach flew he had a few weeks ago was from the raw eggs)
• Peter needs to spend less money on supplements and more on buying a shirt
• Davin says steroids may cause pimples, which is true but from the people I have talked to, they seem to get it more on their back than on their face when on a cycle
• the more I hear Davin talk, the more I agree with Peter!
• Mr. Fantastic says there isn’t anything really wrong with taking orals other than it having to pass through your liver while injectables go directly into the bloodsteam… not entirely true, your liver processes the drug afterwards so orals get processed twice while injectables once
• video of Mr. Fantastic taking a shot of juice (DECA 300) in the shoulder, he used alcohol which is very smart on the injection site
• week 7, about two months, he is up 20 pounds now
• Peter and Mr. Fantastic are positive Micheal Phelps is on the juice, I can’t agree on this, IOC standards are incredibly strict with a huge anti-doping and random testing mechanism since the whole Ben Johnson affair
• a woman states that people take protein, vitamins and other supplements so steroids can’t be anymore dangerous. This is WRONG because steroids is a hormone, protein is not nor do other supplements, just look at female bodybuilders to see the effect of hormone injections
• Mr. Fantastic thinks that Peter will lose only 10% of his gains at the end of the cycle, I got to agree only if he keeps eating like he is and slacks off on the exercise routine along with proper post cycle clomid therapy only due to the fact that his gains were due to a former life of malnutrition and lack of physical activity, his age also helps big time too
• Mr. Fantastic is giving some very good advice now, if Peter continues to improve his training, diet and motivation he will keep most of what he got
• “Yah for steroids… they’re so great!”, I wonder if Peter will think the same when he gets off
• more pictures of him without a shirt… arg!

Episode 8 – Mission Roid

• Peter Brown is Canadian, filming out of Vancouver
• day 54, more “Peter talk” about why he is so cool and smart to do what he is doing
• Peter says one of the major side-effects of steroids is that you get a tan (???), and I thought it was due to him running around in the sun without sunscreen or t-shirt
• Peter going to a tanning salon, yet another extremely stupid move, he must figure that screwing-up your endocrine system isn’t enough, time for some skin cancer too by using a tanning bed and running around town without a t-shirt!
• Tanning girl says people should be tanning 3-4x a week, this is the stupidest and most dangerous thing I have heard in this show so far!
• interview with Peter’s dealer, if I remember correctly, a few episodes ago, he was talking about how smart he was by getting steroids from a doctor because then you know where the stuff is coming from, yet he doesn’t follow his own advice and goes with a steroid dealer (???). My only guess is that his doctor refused to give him steroids because that would only have made his problems worse, not better.
• day 58, he is at 158 pounds and is hoping to gain another 10 pounds by the time the cycle is over… far below his original goal of gaining a total of 42 pounds.
• Peter says he took steroids to “overcome lifelong challenges” that have affected him, I thought he took them to gain 42 pounds and become a ladies man?
• Peter can’t figure-out why people are yelling at him while he does bicep curls… maybe it’s his lack of proper form along with far too little weight?
• a shot of him lifting weight at the gym around the end with a barbell shows his form has not improved even with the use of a personal trainer, those weekend online personal training certificates are really paying-off!

Episode 9 – Roid Karate

• arg… more topless shirt video of him, now in a Karate outfit (with a white belt no less… impressive!) I have a black belt in Karate and took it for 10 years when I was younger
• day 61, his friends notice he went from extremely introverted to extremely extroverted, not sure if this is an improvement
• Davin admits he can’t stand Peter anymore and I can’t stand neither of them
• day 59, Peter says now that he has taken steroids and is a big man, he wants to be respected… he should have read this blog, respect is something you EARN, which, so far, I don’t see much of, hence none was given
• Big Bear is looking worse as Peter is getting better… what’s up with that?
• day 61, he hit the 160 pound plateau so he has lost some motivation at the gym, diet etc… now he has a girlfriend too!
• Peter has replaced his red shorts for a topless Karate uniform! Arg!!!
• week 1: 95 pound squats, week 9: 195 pounds, his thighs are now 24 inches
• Big Bear says all the changes that Peter has gone through have more to do with his new lifestyle than steroids, I completely agree!
• Peter now observes that he no longer has any problems, it’s everybody else who has problems now
• his goal now is getting a girl, gaining 20 pounds and becoming an internet icon

Some thoughts so far

Just about everything Peter has done to change his life could have been done without the use of any steroids what-so-ever. During his transformation, he has acquired some very bad habits including not being able to wear a shirt and putting all his self-esteem into his little pink pills. I really hopes he comes to realize that he only used steroids as an excuse to do what he should have done long ago. He didn’t need them at 138 pounds and he surely doesn’t need them at 160 pounds either.

Real information about steroids, fitness and diet

• Muscle memory is great… too bad it doesn’t last
• Why I decided not to take Anabolic Steroids
• Gaining Weight 101: Tips from a fellow Hard gainer
• LL Question: Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?
• Better Living Through Chemistry
• Taking Time Off and Muscle Memory

Buzvia: Steroids Saved My Life (Television Series)

This is a nice break from writing my next book… the series “Steroids Saved My Life” is interesting to me as it shows people totally what NOT to do when taking them.

Episode 4 – Roidboy

• day 1: 138 pounds (6.8% fat), day 19: 152 pounds, day 26 he is 9% fat
• 1350 calories per day before taking steroids, calories on cycle, 3500+, so now we know for a fact that he wasn’t eating enough to begin with and his phenomenal gains are probably more diet related than taking the 10mg pill with orange juice every morning… so the reason for him taking steroids is what?
• it took 4 episodes before he admits to being monitored by a doctor, this info isn’t on his site when I checked it, so I am assuming he is getting regular blood work done as well, but is this “mild” dosage based on a doctor’s recommendation or a bodybuilder’s cycle? These are completely different things.
• The first smart thing Peter has said so far is that he has stayed away from alcohol during his cycle.
• 4% of women like skinny men (source?)
• more testimonials at how great steroids are and how much he has changed as a result, new habits don’t form nor change in 19 days time
• a woman at the birthday party says he looks great and it’s the confidence that he is lacking
• “Steroids are a quick fix, an easy way out” says Big Red
• Runaway Taylor now says after seeing all the amazing changes that have happened in Peter’s life, he is “considering taking steroids” himself, at least he says he would use needles
• Peter’s goal is to get to 175 to 180 pounds (in 30 days). This shows his complete lack of knowledge yet again, 30 pounds in 30 days is borderline impossible, his goal is to go up 42 pounds! The faster you gain the weight, the faster you lose it as well. He will be lucky to keep 15 pounds a few months after getting off the steroids and looking at his diet and experience, my guess is he will end-up back to 140 pounds in less than a year.
• Peter’s workout routine is 5 days on and two days off… this is INSANE! It’s nice to see how little research he has done in the foundations of a good exercise routine.
• day 22: he was SICK! I wonder if it’s got something to do with over-training, under-eating and completely shocking the hell out of his system over the past 22 days.
• day 26: 147.6 pounds, he has lost a lot of weight (read above)
• Peter tried to go to the gym and was just throwing-up
• Peter is now having doubts about continuing the steroids, what I find ironic is that I am willing to wager that steroids have nothing to do with him being sick, it’s just his body going into shock from all the stress he has put on it over the source of the last month. He could have had these gains WITHOUT steroids too.

Episode 5: The Roid Team

• Peter is now, if his video is to be believed, the be all and end all expert about steroids, nutrition and exercise along with Mr. Fantastic and Suga(r). I think “The Three Stooges” would be more apt.
• Peter says now that he had the stomach flu, steroids (correctly) and the shock he did to his body over the past month had nothing to do with it (incorrect).
• Day 29, all his tests (would be nice to know what they were) show that he is perfectly healthy and fine
• day 33: 150.4 pounds, my guess is the few days off due to being sick gave his body some time to recover (hence the weight gain)
• woman is saying she doesn’t see a difference so he needs to up the dosage (would be nice to know what he IS taking and dosage)
• picture showing Anavar, HCG (and a few others I can’t read) so it looks like he is taking both injectables and oral steroids, not sure why it took 5 episodes to finally show this, the entire format of his cycle should have been made in the first episode of this show
• measurement time, day (?) and his chest is 33.5 inches, thigh 19.5 inches, biceps 11.5 inches, calves 14.5 inches, shoulders 42.5 inches… here is another question to ponder, is the woman in the show been taking the measurements during the entire month so far? If different people are doing measurements, unless they measure the SAME SPOT, these changes are utterly useless.
• “implants are awesome” says the measuring woman, so far, only Bear seems to be the only one with any type of common sense and knowledge about what is going on.
• day 1 and day 33 pictures are shown side by side… how the heck am I suppose to see a difference if the day 33 pictures is scalled-up? Where is a measuring stick or something to show an accurate scale?
• “Is viagra cheating?” question shown. If you have male impotence (which is a possible side-effect of steroids by the way), then who cares but if you are perfectly healthy, why would you need it?
• the measuring woman says that if she was a guy, she would take steroids because they make you look better and stronger. My question is what the heck do steroids have to do with looking better and stronger?
• More Steroids = More Fantastic, using this logic of more is better, why doesn’t Mr. Fantastic or Suga(r) look like bodybuilders? They are big but if you told me they were on steroids, I wouldn’t believe it because they don’t have anything that couldn’t be achieved naturally
• great wisdom from the measurement woman who says “who doesn’t love steroids… they’re just haters if they don’t love steroids”, I am guessing she must be Peter’s personal trainer as a 5 day on, 2 day off routine would make total sense if it came from her

Episode 6 – Midway Point

• showing before / after pictures, I find it hard to see a difference to be honest
• Peter says his reason for taking steroids is because of “a lifetime of being unsatisfied physically” (from episode 1) with video showing him taking 10gm pill with orange juice
• admits his form is horrible and doesn’t have much to build from (two great reasons right there why he shouldn’t be taking steroids)
• day 40 Peter says “I am doing basic exercises being monitored by my trainer… to make sure I am using the right weight… using the right form and not over-exerting himself”. If you are on steroids you NEED to over-exert yourself to the extreme, hence the reason why you need a strong physical, mental and dietary foundation established FIRST.
• routine is 10 minutes of cardio to warm-up followed by 10 minutes of stretching, one hour hitting the weights then a light circuit rotation or light stretching
• Monday: Chest, Tuesday: Back/Abs, Wednesday: Legs, Thursday: Shoulders, Friday: Arms
• this personal trainer got their degree from a 2 day weekend course, this routine is HORRIBLE to say the least. When you are on steroids, you should be exercising the same body part 2x a week as heavy as you can (recovery is very fast on steroids) and do as little cardio as possible because your goal is to gain MASS, it looks to me like his personal trainer is trying to have him gain muscles and stay lean at the same time, which is the wrong approach in my opinion… stretching should be minimal (studies have shown they can cause more damage then they are worth) and done during your weight training routine. Start with light weight (warm-up) and build yourself up from there. If he is doing a circuit rotation after a one hour workout, he is not working out with enough weight.
• bench press was 65 pounds at the beginning, after 6 weeks, 105 pounds
• squats was 95 pounds, 180 pounds after 6 weeks… complains about the bar hitting his spine (???)
• I noticed when ever he goes to the gym, he forgets to wear his t-shirt
• shoulder press weight was 20 pounds (each dumbell), now 35 pounds
• deadlifts were 85 pounds, now 160 pounds
• measurement woman says “I like big thick boys on steroids”
• Suga(r) says steroids help him to “breaking down doors, kicking-in big screen TVs, punching through car windows”
• Peter saying again he eats fast food 2-3x a day and lists all his other phobias related to food (no wonder he is skinny)
• day 32: he is complaining about being hungry all the time. If you are serious about gaining weight, especially on steroids, you should be eating 6-8 times a day, hunger never has a chance of showing-up! This shows he still isn’t eating ENOUGH.
• Over the past 6 weeks, his chest grew by 5.5 inches, thigh by 5 inches, bicep by 1.75 inches, calves 2 inches, shoulder 1.75 inches
• day 40 he says all tests show that steroids are not affecting him in a negative way, which is great! The problem with steroids isn’t when you are on them as much as when you get OFF of them
• he now says his original goals are no longer important for him, he just wants to be healthy now
• after 6 weeks, he is now 152.2 pounds, gaining a total of 13.4 pounds in a month and a half, which is perfectly do-able… he must realize now that there is no way he will gain 42 pounds during his cycle as gains will taper off around the last third. He could have achieved this in probably a two month time period without steroids by the way following a good diet and exercise routine.
• Peter says “the most dangerous part of steroids is not knowing where they are coming from” which is true but what is even more dangerous is people who have no idea what they are doing while taking steroids in the first place! I hope he doesn’t get an abscess on his butt from the injections that so far, he has made no mention of but showed bottles for. A few seconds later, he says he is getting his steroids from a good source (ei: not all from a doctor but from where he doesn’t really know where it’s coming from)
• day 36, he is talking about upping the dosage (???) He should have had his entire cycle planned far in advance with all the drugs bought, sounds to me like he is doing this week by week.
• Peter says “this entire experience has been an eye opening experience for himself and for those viewing the show”, sadly, he is educating people who are watching the show in how NOT to do things, which sadly, most people will not realize
• “I’m feeling tired and sore… I think the problem is that I am not taking enough steroids” is what Peter is thinking now. He is exercising a body that, a little more than a month ago was use to tennis and a Wii (???). Of course his body is sore, he is over-training, under-eating and has no foundations (mental or physical) to handle what is going on. The last thing he needs is more steroids!

Thoughts so far

I thought the first three episodes were bad but the way things are going now, this is just a rush to the bottom. The amount of pure BS being told as “fact” is horrible and even worse, people who are skinny like him (I was like that too), will follow his extremely uneducated and flawed advice and get themselves in big trouble physically and mentally. For instance, he managed to almost double his squat in a 6 month period, the problem is his muscles can handle this strain but not his ligaments so he is being very careless with his joints and only has his age protecting him for serious tears. His logic that because his body is screaming at him to take a break, he needs more steroids to overcome his physical (mental) limitations is incredibly flawed thinking. I am beginning to think the personal trainer he is using may know enough about physiology to give him an exercise routine that will exhaust him so that he doesn’t go with heavier weight and snap something. I am eager to see how this proceeds!

Real information about steroids, fitness and diet

• Muscle memory is great… too bad it doesn’t last
• Why I decided not to take Anabolic Steroids
• Gaining Weight 101: Tips from a fellow Hard gainer
• LL Question: Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?
• Better Living Through Chemistry
• Taking Time Off and Muscle Memory

Buzvia: Steroids Saved My Life (Television Series)