My experience on eating once a day, hunger and food perception
blog.xavivives.comI've always had two meals a day, people tend to tell me oh breakfast is SOOO important, but I tend to do better than most my peers with being alert in the morning. A glass of water is enough to get me ready. Been thin my whole life and it's hard not to see why, it's very challenging to beat 2000 calories with two meals, and when you try to fit some proteins and vegetables it's damn near impossible. I'm in the camp that wakes up somewhat uneasy in the stomach so I just naturally am not hungry when I wake. My only proven way to gain weight given my eating habits, has been lifting weights.
I think the most impressive part of this regimen would be not snacking. Having cheap, high calorie food / beverages available in, say, vending machines is a major problem that can bump people up in calories quickly. Add to that highly available / cheap fast food options (with giant cups of sugar water) and it becomes much worse.
This article is a good summary of how a crappy person's local food environment can be: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesit...
Three times a day is certainly not a hard rule - its just a habit.
During busy times at work, I can get down to once every other day. Its not hard. Its all about being distracted from hunger long enough to put it in the background.
As for how often we 'need' to eat, that's not clear. Three times a day is absolutely a made-up number. Cultural, not biological. And of course how many snack all day long? How many 'meals' is that?