#87 Crystal Sikes – Healed Gut with Keto

Meet Crystal:

My name is Crystal Love and I am Robert Sikes’s wife. Robert and I started keto brick in 2018. In the beginning, my job was figuring out all of the health department regulations and making sure everyone was abiding by The food and safety standards. We have seen this business grow a lot and I couldn’t be more proud to be standing by Robert’s side while we continue to build our family at Keto brick. I have been managing the employees and the brick production. I do a lot of the back-end work for Keto Brick to help it flourish. I’m grateful to have this opportunity and growth within the Keto space.

Show Notes:

ABOUT CRYSTAL

• I am married to Robert Sikes, Keto Savage. Together, we have a business called, Keto Brick which is a ketogenic meal replacement bar of a 1000 calories
• I am a keto coach and have been keto for 3 1/2 now
• Mostly, I started keto to help my gut issues and a bunch of different things that I was dealing with and I ended up using it for my body building competition
• I love my life, every single day of it, and I just try to be a positive light to people

WHY YOU STARTED KETO

• Several years ago, I had been dealing a lot with gut issues and just really feeling terrible. It was putting me into a depression
• I had a not so pretty lifestyle before and I started having a lot more stresses in my life.Then I started having digestive issues
• I could not figure out what was going on
• Nobody was giving me answers, so they put me on a bunch of different diets
• Turned out, I had to do a scan to see how quickly my digestion worked and it turned out that I had gastroparesis
• My muscles, nerves, body, stomach and intestines do not work properly or as well as they should
• So, the nerves will stimulate the muscles to move and it may move sluggishly
• They put me on a super high sugar liquid diet
• At that time, Robert and I were just dating and he told me that I was going to kill myself. Like, I will have diabetes or something’s going to go terribly wrong
• And at that time, he was actually keto and I was thought it was ridiculous because I am not giving up my pastries
• But, I gave it a shot and I hated it at first. So, I went back to carbs and felt even worse
• So, we manipulated a lot of different things, incorporated some MCT oils
• At this time, there wasn’t really a whole lot out there, so I was kind of trying to dig into whatever information that I possibly could
• I started keto for the second time, manipulated some of the variables, and fell in love with it and haven’t turned back since

HEALTH BENEFITS

• Because carbs tend to be higher volume, they will expand your stomach
• With fat, being your energy source, you’re able to eat a lot more of that because it is a lot less dense
• So, it doesn’t take up much room in your stomach, allowing your stomach to fully digest that food
• I did not get that keto high that everyone talks about and it really frustrated me
• And I honestly did not figure it out until very recently on why I never got that
• I felt really good, I felt great, I had the energy, but it was not like what everyone else experienced
• Other than my stomach, which is probably the biggest thing and with fixing that, I was able to kind of come out of the depression that I was in
• I started exercising more. Before I would spend the day in bed because I felt terrible
• I had been lifting for a couple of years, and I really did not expect to do a competition
• By doing the competition, I think it was a great way to show all the work you have been putting in
• So, I had been lifting for several years, just not really having a goal in mind
• I ended up training and prepping for this competition for 22 weeks and I was keto all the way through it, no carbs, and I felt really good
• It’s just very different, but I felt awesome
• I started at 2300 calories at the beginning of my prep which was pretty good, but it was hard for me to get it all in, so I was kind of happy to start decreasing at that point
• We kept my carbs at 10 grams my entire prep and we just slowly decreased protein and fat both together, but keeping fat at a higher ratio
• And towards at the end of my prep, I was around 83% or 84% of fat, but still feeling pretty full
• I did a one meal a day towards the end and felt really good
• I did not lose any muscle my entire prep which is actually insane
• When I started, my body fat was about 26% and it got down to 13%
  

TOUGH SPOTS

• There was just a day or two, when I would go to the gym, and just didn’t  want to be there. But you have to get in your cardio or your lifting sessions
• Robert was still my boyfriend at that time and he is a very intense person, but he would push me harder than I ever wanted him to sometimes
• So, I remember doing a full workout and crying – silent tears
• And those were the times that I could look back on and say, “if I can push past those moments over and over, not many people are willing to push their bodies past the point of what it wants”
• That was probably my biggest struggle until after my show
• I definitely went crazy with the food and stirred up a whole bunch of eating disorders that hadn’t come out for a long time
• On show day, you tend to allow yourself to eat whatever you want
• For that meal, I definitely did not limit myself
• After the show, I ate as much meat as I wanted and I then, I made a huge keto brownie and ate the whole thing
• That is a huge trigger because you don’t feel full and you kind of mess with your hormones a lot. And you will just keep eating
• I could not recognize that in myself that I just kept putting food in my mouth and just starting to sneak it, and I just kept doing it
• It was like an addiction, so it was a definitely a mental thing
• So, to anybody out there that is dieting, competing for a show or whatever, don’t just go crazy
• I highly suggest reverse dieting and making your calories and macros go back up very slowly to allow your body to adjust
• It took me months to get back the actual feeling of fullness
• It took me forever to stop binging
• Robert knew the whole time and I needed to confide in him because I needed someone to have my back and someone to tell me to stop it. He is really good with that
• To have him watch me or keep an eye on how I was doing was really helpful
• Honestly, I thought that tracking was going to be better for me, but it turned out, that was more of a trigger than just allowing myself to eat what felt good
• When you allow yourself to eat, you won’t think about the calories anymore
• So, for me, part of the healing process was to stop tracking and allow myself to feel fullness rather than a number telling me what to eat or not eat

KETO BRICK

• Me and Robert spent a lot of time in the kitchen making good food for his competition prep, which was several years ago
• What we were looking for was like a dense high-fat food item and at that time, there was nothing available for us
• So, we just started making things in the kitchen
• Through this, he started his YouTube and he would say that he was eating a Keto Brick
• Everyone started asking and he said that he would not tell anyone and that we would do something with it
• So, I started looking into the health department on what needs to be done and what the processes had to be and we just started refining it
• Long story short, we now have the product and we make 5 different flavors
• With the different flavors, there’s different textures
• We had a lot of ups and downs with Keto Brick, but we have been exploding and just needing more help in order for us to expand in different ways and aspects in business
• We started the Keto Brick last March of 2018 and it was in the middle of my prep

WORDS OF WISDOM

• If it is not working for you or if what you are doing is not sustainable, figure out what is
• Keto is not “one thing beats all” there are so many ways to manipulate your body on the keto diet, that I think anyone can benefit 
• I honestly believe that by playing with the types of food you are eating or playing with the amounts you are eating, you can find what works best for their body
• But if it is not working, don’t keep suffering
• Change it to fit your body
• Everyone’s body is so different

TYPICAL DAY IN YOU DIET                                   

• I will have a cup of coffee with cream
• At 8:00 AM, we workout
• I will have my first meal around noon and that meal will consist of eggs and ground beef mixed with cream cheese and salsa, but lately, I have been doing shakes because of my hormones
• Robert and I love to grill out in the evening. So, we probably eat our last meal around 7:00 PM and that will consist mostly of steak
• If I am very low in fat, I will eat a Keto Brick
• Generally, I would say that I eat half a brick a day during lunch

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Instagram: the.lady.savage
• Website: ladysavage.com (soon)
• YouTube: Keto Savage

Comments

comments