There are few things I enjoy more than walking with a pack of friendly dogs whether it is here in South Carolina or up north in Canada. This week reminded me of how much I enjoy this exercise. Of course I am very popular with the crowd as they all know I carry little soft treats in my pocket just in case a fur baby finds the need to have a snack.  Here I am with my dog Buckingham and his friend Cassie.  We had house guests this week, our dear friends Jack and Genie Wilmer who live in Alexandria and in Canada near us in the summer.  They have a beautiful dog, Nala, who came along too.  The real test of a friendship is if the dog is as welcome as the owners and in this case Nala was absolutely welcome.  I am not sure she wanted to leave and I am pretty sure my guys didn’t want her to.  Like humans, they really do know when they like another dog and welcome them into their home.   In Canada we have had as many as seven (7) dogs in our pack and this week we had that many the day these pictures were taken.  I just didn’t get all of them in the photo.  We had a busy time again with gatherings of our close friends as well as a mini-Princeton reunion.  There are many Princetonians who live here and they do enjoy getting together.  We have now done this three times and they are looking forward to the Fourth Annual next March.  So are we!

We had a lecture this week by Barry Sears, PhD on The Wellness Zone.  He wrote the Zone Diet which introduced us to the concept of inflammation in the body and how to balance having too little inflammatory response where injuries never heal and too much inflammatory response where the body attacks itself.  The balance is what he calls The Zone.   Things that turn on an inflammatory response in your body are injuries, diet and microbial invasion.  Inflammation needs to be resolved and when it is not disease happens.  If you go to his website you will see his Zone Food Pyramid there and you can read more about his research.

Continuing on this theme we next had a fabulous lecture by Dr. Andrew Weil.  He is my most favorite speaker so far.  I said to Genie that I wondered if it was the Santa Claus syndrome?  His approach to food is full of common sense.  What I like in particular is the anti-inflammatory approach to eating.  We know from the research (see above) that has been done that inflammation is what causes illness so it is logical to try and keep inflammation to a minimum.  One of the best ways to do that is to eat foods that will support your immune system and calm inflammation in the body.  Here is a partial list of recommendations for anti-inflammatory food adapted from Dr. Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Pyramid.  For more information please visit his website by clicking on the above link.

Protein:  fish and seafood with an emphasis on wild not farm raised; legumes (beans), peas (black, chickpeas, black-eyed peas), lentils; soy foods: edamame, tempeh, tofu, soy milk and soy nuts; nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, hemp, flax, chia).

Grains: barley, basmatic rice, brown rice, buckwheat, groats, quinoa, steel-cut oats and wild rice. My honey loves oatmeal for breakfast and a few months ago I got him to switch to steel-cut and now he is pleased to see that he can keep on eating his favorite breakfast.

Vegetables:  dark leafy greens, cruciferous, carrots, beets, onions, peas, squashes, sea vegetables.

Mushrooms!  I didn’t know about mushrooms.  Asian mushrooms like (enokidake, maitake, oyster and shiitake.  Avoid the commercial button mushrooms as they may contain carcinogens.

Fruit:  lower glycemic fruits like raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, oranges, pink grapefruit, blackberries, cherries apples and pears.

Healthy fats: Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO), more on that in a minute, expeller pressed organic canola oil, walnut oil, hazelnut oil, organic expeller pressed high oleic sunflower or safflower oil.

Healthy sweets such as plain dark (70%) chocolate and drink lots of water.

Back to EVOO.  Last week I talked about making my homemade mayo and not liking the olive oil.  Well I decided to learn more and discovered through this week’s lectures and a visit to our local store Olive the Above, that the EVOO that I had just bought and is a brand that passed the California test that determines whether you are really buying olive oil or not, was rancid.  It smelled like paint and I couldn’t eat it.  So if your olive oil doesn’t smell right, toss it, it is not worth it to eat bad olive oil.

This week we were also introduced to Health Histories and Coaching Skills. There is lots to learn and lots to read.  For now we are only practicing with our classmates.

It was a full week and I still have some workbook assignments to do and also need to review using the Study Guide before I take the test that comes out on Monday.  We won’t have another module until the following week so that we can concentrate on the test and focus on making sure we are sound in the work we have already done.

Buckingham was sad to say goodbye to Nala, they really looked so happy and content with each other, just the way good friends should be.  We were sad to see Jack and Genie leave too.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Lou