​Have you heard of intermittent fasting? I know you hear fasting and it's immediately a turn off. But this is a different breed altogether. It's simply a different way of eating by scheduling your meals within a certain time frame and not eating for a certain time frame. It is great for weight loss as well as your health in general.

It turns out that two meals a day are plenty. In order to decrease your risk of developing chronic disease and optimize your lifespan switching to an intermittent fasting plan of eating is ideal. Recent studies have shown that the near-continuous grazing can be partially blamed for the diabetes and obesity epidemic. There are several benefits to be realized when you go periods of time without eating.

Dr. Joseph Mercola has done a lot of research on this topic and suggests limiting your meals to a six to eight hour time frame. You can skip whichever meal is best for you, either breakfast or dinner. Some people need a hardy breakfast to get them going in the morning. So a late lunch and no dinner would be the plan. I personally have been doing this for more than six months and I eat my first meal around 11-12 and then eat dinner between 5-6 and this works very well for me.

The most important thing and the biggest change for me, is to avoid eating for at least three hours before going to bed. I don't eat anything after dinner at all any more. As it turns out it is detrimental to give your body food before you go to bed. This is because of the way your body produces energy. The mitochondria inside your cells create energy from the food you eat and the oxygen your breathe.When you eat more calories than your body can immediately use, it produces more free electrons and this can back up inside your mitrochondria. These excessive electrons can leak out and kill the mitochondria early and also cause damage to cell membranes and can even add to DNA mutations. Many experts also believe this type of mitrochondria dysfunction also leads to accelerated aging.

Your body does not need a lot of calories during sleep and that is why it is not a good time to add excess fuel. This excess fuel can and will generate more free radicals and this will accelerate aging, damage tissue and lead to chronic disease long term.

This diet is proposed for adults, not growing children or teens unless they are overweight. Kids need to be eating real food, not processed food, and drinking water, not soda or juice all the time. Growing children may need three meals a day but they need good nutritious food, not processed.

So, as I said, this is something that I have been practicing for several months now and find it meets my needs very well. I feel better, wake much more refreshed and have even dropped a few pounds. Be healthy and take care of yourself.As a healthcare professional and/or travel nurse it's always important to stay healthy and be at your best so as to provide the level of care your patients deserve.