Tell us about the two wake-up calls that put you on the path to a happier and healthier life.
The first, my father’s death from a heart attack aged 57, didn’t really hit me until the second: my own ‘mini stroke’, at 53. It was the last day of a skiing tour in Italy. I started feeling nauseous and dizzy and by the time we got back down from the mountain I had double vision. I’d suffered a ‘minor occlusion’ that blocked off a tiny vessel supplying muscles and nerves in my eyes. Weirdly, my blood pressure also shot up and for three months I wasn’t able to work. Until that point, despite the family history, I’d felt invincible, but I’d gone from healthy to very unhealthy in the blink of an eye.
How did you deal with it?
Before, I’d been an epidemiologist studying populations. But, afterwards, my research became more selfish. Aside from radically changing the way I eat, my activity level and my sleep regime, I did what I always do when I don’t know enough about a subject: I wrote a book about it to totally immerse myself, which resulted in The Diet Myth. My latest book, Food For Life, came from the same desire for knowledge.
And what lessons are you passing on to us?
Primarily, that choosing the right foods is the most important thing we can do for our health.