#53 Darius Pittman – Sugarless Crystals

My name is Darius Pittman. I currently reside in Raleigh, NC and I have been doing the keto diet for about 3 years. I suffered from weight issues growing up. So, for the longest I have searched for issues. I can say unlike most men I have dieted as much as most women throughout my life. I was introduced to this lifestyle through a friend and I haven’t turned back since.

I continue to educate myself and push forward. So much I run a food blog by the name Sugarless Crystals. Where I focus on basically sugar free content. I am a YouTuber at heart before a food blogger. I have to say editing videos and most recently creating vlogs has been so fun for me. I am continuing to push forward expanding Sugarless Crystals and I am so excited to see who joins for the ride.

ABOUT DARIUS

• I am from Sugarless Crystals
• I have a YouTube channel, a full blog, Instagram account and Facebook
• I started out YouTube doing full reviews of other people’s recipe
• It blossomed on doing my own recipe, and running my own websites
• When I first started, I was doing Paleo and Keto low-carb, but I kind of straight away from Paleo because it kind of became more carb based and it was hard for me to stay hard for me with my macros
• I went strictly to Keto and low-carb
• I have been Keto for 3 years
• Being on the gym, and around with people that worked out a lot, I want to be leaner
• I workout with a female body builder and she was speaking to me one day and told me that she met a guy named Travis, and he was telling her about the Keto diet
• And of course, I was like, “sign me up”
• She said it was similar to Atkins
• So, I start doing Keto and like anybody else, I have to experiment when I first started
• And the problem arose like the low electrolytes, the Keto flu, constipation or diarrhea, low energy
• I went to search for answers and I found Stephanie Keto person and it led me to Jimmy Moore’s book
• When I first started I was not anything, I was just eating
• I had no clue how to break down net carbs as well
• Because I have so much history or dieting, I am used of being hungry
• At first, when I cut back my calories naturally, I have the craving and hunger, but after a while, the hunger went away
• When I was younger, I was overweight
• I was always going back to my bad habits, back and forth
• To find Keto and I am completely satisfied
• I am just happy with my life now, not to mention the benefits you get from Keto
• I just happy that I fought the sugar and carb craving
• I tried doing the 16-8 fasting, but it did not work out for me because my work is on night shift
• My typical day is I’ll eat somewhere 3:00 to 5:00 PM, then I’ll eat somewhere between 9:00-11:00PM and my last meal would be between 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM
• I am not so strict on it because I workout early in the morning or in the middle of the night
• If ever I feel like extra starving, I won’t punish myself and not eat
• I am not against intermittent fasting, but if you starve yourself, that is just a slippery slope
• I can tell when I over eat my protein, because it would make me super tired
• Breakfast is my biggest meal, and I noticed that If I eat a lot of protein in that meal, it will shut me down a little bit
• I have done blood glucose testing before and after my breakfast
• And even though I may not suffer so much of a rise, I can still feel something is different
• I am about 190 lbs and I am 6’2
• I eat moderate protein
• Every once in a while I like to get back in tune with my macros because I don’t count my calories everyday
• My calorie goal is usually 2000, but I stay under
• Certain desserts I make, I found myself binging on them
• Doing recipes, that’s when I noticed
• It started out with my carrot cake recipe and I live by my carrot cake recipe
• When I was eating the carrot cake recipe, I noticed could not stop eating them
• On a day to day basis, I lean more on the carnivore side
• Because when I was intermittent fasting, vegetables make me very bloated due to fiber content and I don’t like the bloated feeling
• I want to get into avocado, I tried it before, but my body just rejected it so bad
• When I was young, my mother would let me eat salads all the time. I love salads.
• Then one day, I was at this table and eating my salads, and right in the middle of 2 fork full, I literally went to the bathroom because it was coming right back up
• Since that day, if I eat any vegetable especially if they are raw, I know immediately that it is coming right back up
• I was just speaking with my chiropractor the other day and he told me that I am very in tuned with my body
• He said that people who does Keto tend to be that way
• Something that triggers with my inflammation is spinach
• I tried to rotate them. I took them all and brought it back
• Broccoli bloats me, kale bloats me and spinach inflames my sinuses
• When I was doing intermittent fasting, I did a vegetable shakes and I was able to keep my vegetables down
• The way I can keep my vegetables down is I always have a counter food or something to drink with it
• Typically water won’t do

HEALTH BENEFITS

• The lack of hunger
• My control in my cravings
• That’s what I was suffering all my life
• And I don’t feel like I am missing out anything anymore
• I still want my oreos when I am looking at them, but I don’t feel the need to have them
• I never reached perfection
• I guess, it’s only human nature to see floss and strive for the better
• It’s never quite right
• But in the sense of reactions I get from everyone, yes I am very happy with my body
• You can’t learn with the mentality that you know everything
• I am always striving to better myself
• It’s always about progression for me

FAVORITE RECIPE

• My carrot cake recipe

FAVORITE QUOTE

• The second you thought you know everything, you know nothing

FAVORITE BOOK

• How to win friends and influence people

WHAT ARE YOU MOST GRATEFUL FOR

• Life
• Life is precious and we only get one

FAVORITE MOVIE

• I love everything by James Cameron
• The Terminator

GUILTY PLEASURES

• Conversation
• Conversing and meeting other people

COFFEE OR TEA

• Coffee
• I started doing bulletproof coffee

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?

• I have my website now
• I have my YouTube channel
• I am going to join Liz’s podcast and we are going to be a duo

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU?

• YouTube: Sugarless Crystals
• Website: sugarlesscrystals.com

Recipe for Darius’s Carrot Cake HERE

Recipe for Cinnamon Pecan Pancake HERE!