You Can Be Happy

CHAPTER 3

Getting the basics in place: improving your diet and sleep

The French writer Georges Perec once kept a record of everything he ate and drank for an entire year. He called it: ‘Attempt at an Inventory of the Liquid and Solid Foodstuffs Ingurgitated by Me in the Course of the Year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-four’. (If, like us, you struggle to remember what you ate for breakfast this morning, this remarkable feat is especially impressive…)

Let’s imagine that you have done the same, but for just seven days. When you look back over your notes, you discover that during the week you have eaten:

• Lots of fruit and vegetables
• Plenty of wholewheat bread, pasta and rice
• Lots of fish
• Low-fat cheeses and yoghurt
• Dried fruit and unsalted ...