Paula's Health Blog

Hello to everyone! My name is Paula Payne and I am a health and wellness coach at the Hartley YMCA. I would like to take you along on my year of studies at the National Institute of Whole Health. To share with you some highlights of what I am learning, I will be writing a short blog about what is trending in the health program. Please let me know what you think!
What does the Mediterranean Diet, Dr. Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet and the Zone diet by Dr. Barry Sears all have in common? Well, lots! They all focus on decreasing the amount of inflammation in the body, which has big implications for our health.
What is inflammation and why should you care? Inflammation is a normal process that helps the body marshall its protective forces when we have an injury. For example, if you have a splinter, you know that area will be red, get tender and swell a bit. That is the body rushing in with white blood cells and other factors that surround and destroy the bacteria that has invaded.
It has been discovered that this process of inflammation can also be happening “silently”, that is without pain, inside the body, affecting the brain, heart, immune system and joints. This can go on for years before we are aware of it later on as symptoms of arthritis, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimers occur.
What can we do? One very effective and immediate action we can take is to pay attention to our diet. Food has an enormous impact on our body chemistry and the process of inflammation.

How to do this? We are all familiar with the food pyramid, here is the anti-inflammatory version.

You will notice fruit and veggies form the base of this way of eating, followed by lean proteins (you may have heard about how valuable fish oil is, which can be added to your diet through fish such as salmon, or through fish oil supplements, and a dash of healthy fats (nuts, olive oil, avocado). Another big change is that the grains and starches (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) are at the top of the pyramid. This means they are used sparingly. I invite you to give it a try, experiment a little. Maybe for one or two meals a week and see how it goes. We have more control over our health than we think. If you are curious and would like more information, there are some links below. I would love to hear from you about your experience. Have a great week, and see you at the Y.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/VDR00029/How-to-Eat-an-Anti-Inflammatory-Diet.html 
http://www.zonediet.com/resources/recipes/ 
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/02/anti-inflammatory-foods-herbs-spices.aspx