He referred to it as his “little science experiment.” Once a week, Bill, 45, would wash his hands, sterilize his desk, and lay out the syringes he bought from Amazon as he prepared to inject his drug cocktail. He filled one syringe with off-script testosterone, the other with semaglutide, the active ingredient in the type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic and the weight-loss drug Wegovy.

Bill, who’s using only his first name to protect his privacy, doesn’t work in a pharmacy. He works in finance. But he would mix the semaglutide himself, adding sterile water to the powder he purchased from a website—no prescription, medical history, or insurance required. He was confident he knew what he was doing, since he’d prepared drugs in a similar way when taking human growth hormone in the past. And besides, the risks were nothing compared with the promise of supercharging his “cut,” allowing him to burn as much fat as possible and getting him ready to compete as a bodybuilder—a lifelong aspiration.

If you’ve ever tried to get cut—or “lean” or “shredded” or any of the words we associate with the ideal male form—then you know it’s hard to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. The former requires consuming more calories than you burn, while the latter requires consuming fewer. Attempting to accomplish both goals at the same time may cause a slower rate of change in both, according to Lee Boyce, C.P.T., a Men’s Health advisor. That’s why most trainers will tell you to bulk first and then reduce fat. But what if there were a magical way to do both things at once?