Howdy!

I must confess that nutrition is not one of my favorite topics. I believe that’s because I was once obsessed with nutrition and read anything I could get my hands on. And then I went through my disordered eating phase where I spent every moment of every day thinking about food. That wasn’t a fun time, and to get over those OCD eating patterns I stripped my nutrition down to the bare essentials and nothing else. The less time I have to think about food and eating patterns, the better.

That’s why I’m excited to share this interview I did with Nick Pineault. He loves food, and he loves talking nutrition. His nutrition approach for health, fat loss, and performance is simple and easy to apply, and I absolutely love that. Let’s get right into it.

1) Nia: Howdy, Nick! Thanks for taking the time to do the interview. Please do a quick introduction telling our readers who you are and what your passion is.

Nick: My name is Nick Pineault, and I love food.

2) Nia: Awesome. Like you said, you put together “Healthy or Not“. I want to discuss this first. So, what exactly is “Healthy or Not”? What makes it any different from all the other stuff out there?

Nick: Five years ago, I was at the point where most people looking to change their bodies and health are at some day: you’re getting results, but you know things could be better, and faster.

I knew food choices were a big part of the equation, but wasn’t sure who to trust. One day, some research was linking tomatoes to cancer, and the next day, another research came to the conclusion that tomatoes CURED cancer.

Because I’m somewhat crazy and obsessed when it comes to finding the truth about something as critical as food and health, I spent hundreds of hours watching documentaries, reading blog articles and research papers, and getting the facts straight. After all this hard work, I came to a single realization: almost everything I used to think was healthy, was really not.

Healthy or Not was born.

I created this book to make it the last nutrition book you’ll ever need. Everything is in there, and easy to understand.It’s not some magical fat loss program that promises you crazy results, or a product trying to push diet pills.

It’s a straight-to-the-point guide to what foods you should focus on if you’re any interested in a slimmer waist, better health and higher energy levels… and what you should NOT eat 95% of the time to be sure you’re not the one responsible for your lack of results.

Now, what makes this guide different from all the other nutrition books out there… an image is worth a thousand words:

By using a layout that’s like a giant infographics, it’s a fun and easy read.

You read that right.

With Healthy or Not, you can actually feel something else than utter boredom when reading about nutrition.

3) Nia: Awesome. Having read “Healthy or Not” I can say that it’s definitely a fun read with the format shown above. It’s wasn’t like I was reading a boring “do this, don’t do that” manual. Plus, the format makes it super easy to understand and digest (excuse the pun).

Now I’m all for eating the much healthier foods, but I also don’t completly avoid some of my favorite treats that have the less-than-healthy ingredients (namely ice cream and gelato). What are your thoughts on this? Do you think as long as people apply the 90/10 rule that it’s okay? How can people still enjoy their favorite foods without guilt and sacrificing their waist line?

Nick: Here’s how they can still enjoy their favorite foods without guilt:

1) Get real.

2) Stop freaking out… starting right now.

Get real means that you have to be brutally honest with yourself.

That implies you actually need to know what you eat in an average day, week and month.

If the sum of your eating habits in a month is 4.5 kilograms of sugar, 30 kilograms of enriched flour and 18 liters of soda, you know where that leads you.

What happens for most people struggling with their weight is self-deception.

Cake is a treat food, but when you simply change the name from “cake” to “muffin” and eat it in the morning, it turns into a health food. The problem is: those two contain basically the exact same ingredients (I talk more about dozens of deceptive foods in Healthy or Not).

Stop freaking out means: don’t listen to the paleo geeks out there that want to make you believe that eating 1 teaspoon of sugar or that having junk food once in a while will destroy your body. It won’t.

The truth is the human body is so adaptable and strong that you could probably survive on a McDonald’s diet for the rest of your life (which will be shortened… but still).

Note that I used the word “survive”. There’s a big difference between surviving and living fully. And that’s why you should focus on certain foods most of the time.

If you stick to the real healthy foods I outline in my book (basically what was consumed thousands of years ago) 90% of the time, you’ll get to enjoy your body and life to its fullest.

Freaking out and feeling guilty about food choices is terrible (I’ve been through that BS myself at times). Never fall into that cycle.

4) Nia: I know what you mean. When I was battling my disordered eating patterns I would be riddled with guilt over the smallest thing I’d eat that wasn’t “super healthy”. It was terrible and thankfully I no longer do that.

What would you say is one of the most shocking or controversial components of “Healthy or Not”?

Nick: My (and dozen of other nutrition experts) stand on milk.

I think most people should remove dairy from their diet. That’s because pasteurised milk products (as opposed to fresh, raw milk) are highly inflammatory and allergenic.

The stats never lie: 75% of the world’s population is lactose-intolerant.

What that means is: dairy makes your throat sore, can be the cause of many conditions you may have (acne, skin problems, bloating, etc.) and will screw up your recovery.

Also, I’m not convinced milk as good of a source of calcium as the big corporations put it. More and more studies are proving that the calcium in pasteurised milk has been damaged by the manufacturing process and is not absorbable by the human body.

That may just explain why US is the country that consumes the more dairy on the planet, while the rates of osteoporosis are at a staggering all-time high.

5) I don’t have such an aggressive stance on dairy, but I do recommend people opt for raw or at least grass-fed milk if they can. Personally I purchase milk locally from grass fed cows; the milk is treated at very low temperatures. 

Awesome stuff, Nick. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers that they could put to practice?

Nick: If you could take away one single thing from all this blabla, this is it: get educated on what you eat. Nothing will make more of a difference on your fat loss and fitness results.

Never trust some random advice you read in magazines or hear about on some TV show.

Do your own research. Or – insert shameless plug warning here – skip most of the work and grab a copy of Healthy or Not. There’s a reason I have almost 100 sources documenting this 78-pages handbook. Because it contains the facts.

Now, you choose how to deal with the truth.

Thanks, Nick! If you’re interested in Healthy or Not, Nick’s super simple and easy to apply nutrition guide for better health and improved body composition, then Click Here to check it out. You won’t find a better nutrition guide for less than 20 bucks.