if an individual uses their BTC to buy goods or services is that seen as a realized gain prior to the purchase of said product?
Bitcoin is generally referred to as a digital currency, meaning that legally if you have Bitcoin it is not realized as profit, you can buy goods or sell goods with BTC without having to say it is profit, even though your country applies taxes, profits and taxes are different factors, meaning taxes are taken from crypto buying/selling transactions on the exchange, if you buy goods through a different route, it's the same as sending BTC to a wallet or exchange, not in a crypto buying/selling transaction.
I mean like this.
You carry out crypto buying/selling activities on an exchange monitored by the tax authorities. For registered exchanges, of course all forms of crypto buying/selling activities are considered profits, so you are still subject to tax.
If you send from wallet to wallet it is called a sending transaction, not selling/buying crypto, so it is not profit, but sending.