6 ms·

Should we be eating three meals a day?

67 points by Kaibeezy 5y ago

camillomiller 5y ago
I’ll spare you the click. It’s yet another article about intermittent fasting, but with a historical perspective.
- Kaibeezy 5y ago
  I read it as an historical article about meal sizing/timing, with an intermittent fasting perspective. I’ve been traveling for a couple of weeks, and between the jet lag and a busy schedule, I found myself shifting to a late-breakfast-then-early-dinner two meals per day schedule, so the article was timely for me.
amriksohata 5y ago
Similarly Ayurveda (comes from Hindu sages) they say the opposite of what i was taught in school. I remember a nutritionist coming in to tell us to have a heavy breakfast, medium sized lunch and light dinner.Ayurvedaa recommends the lunch meal being the heaviest as it lines up with your Agni (digestive fire) being at peak and in synchronization with the Sun reaching its highest point.
- dageshi 5y ago
  I honestly think it depends a lot on climate and the type of work you do. Hot climates vs cold climates, hard manual work vs sitting at a desk. Given that range I doubt there's any one size fits all "best" regimen.
- ggm 5y ago
  and in synchronization with the Sun reaching its highest point. The inadequately understood influence of solar tides on digestion. Humour aside, three meals represents the sweet spot for labour to produce edible food in the circumstances we found ourselves in. Grazing would interfere with other necessities of life for most people once some kind of division of labour emerged.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The heavy breakfast thing originates from the fact that peope fast during their sleep which recovers their insulin sensitivity so eating breakfast makes them feel more full. If you skip breakfast and fast until lunch then you are fasting for a longer period. The human body is basically a battery that gets recharged or discharged. A lot of diets are focused around charging your body more slowly instead of discharging it. No wonder they all fail.
dmarchand90 5y ago
I swear to God I remember hearing the opposite not long ago. That frequent, smaller, meals are better as they more closely match the continual foraging of hunter-gatherers. Here's the first reference I could find: https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer... The older I get the more inconsistencies and instabilities I hear in dieting advice. I'm old enough to remember when fat was the bad guy and sugar was maybe ok
- hansthehorse 5y ago
  It's amazing how much sugar is in almost everything. I made an effort to cut out as much added sugar as I could and it's exhausting. There are over 50 synonyms for sugar that food companies use.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  If the advice comes with a story about how such and such was similar to the diets of ancestors, it's probably unscientific to the point of parody. A wide variety in your diet prevents potential harms from chronic exposure - if you eat the same things over long periods you can accumulate unintended adulterants. Your particular genetics might result in chronic inflammation from an otherwise innocent food item. Diet should be approached as a game with unknowable hazards. Science is continually evolving, and the findings one week can be completely overturned the next, and so on. Your strategy in the diet game should be to imitate success, avoid harmful patterns, and seek variety consistently. One day we will have a thorough model for nutrition and genetics and we can use soylent style customized food. Meal pacing depends on your lifestyle, what you eat, fitness, and a myriad of other factors. There will be no one size fits all answer - there are too many confounding factors to reach a sensible conclusion except at an individual level. Someone sedentary has different requirements than an athlete who runs marathons, or a warehouse worker, librarian, or plumber. One big meal might be best for one, while munching all day could be best for another, and their colleagues might find variations more suitable to their context. One strategy is to go through an elimination experiment- eat nothing but meat, for 2 weeks, and gradually add different foods one per week, keeping a journal of subjective effects, blood pressure, satiety, weight, bowel movements, and so on. Following a fad diet
justinzollars 5y ago
I count my calories. And the easiest way I can enjoy my meals, have snacks and maybe a drink is to skip a meal. 3 large meals each day, adds up to a lot of calories, and if you snack and drink: game over.
inglor_cz 5y ago
I have been experimenting with IF for years now and my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results. (As measured by blood pressure, blood tests, body weight, the overall feeling of comfort/energy/stamina atc.) YMMV. I also noticed that the feelings of hunger are very malleable. Everyday hunger seems to be a habit. Once you are used to eating at a certain hour, you will feel hungry as it approaches, then the feeling will disappear again. It takes several days to extinguish that reflex. Looking at the state of obesity in the richer half of the world today, I wonder if we should promote IF as an alternative to contemporary eating standards. It is not a magic bullet and it may harm people with eating disorders, but the disease burden caused by overeating is an order of magnitude larger. The real trouble with IF is probably that it is nigh impossible to make money on it. Squaring market economy with less consumption - against vital interests of Coca-Cola, Nestlé etc. - seems to be impossible. It took a lot of effort to reduce prevalence of smoking, even though it smells badly and it is repulsive to non-smokers. We didn't even make a dent in alcoholism. And food is attractive, good smelling and absolutely necessary for our survival. Humanity seems to be destined for a future of gluttony. I am almost 44. During my life, I have seen children and elderly alike blowing up like balloons. Unlike many "old geezer complaints", this process is measurable and even obvious in plain sight, when you compare older street photographs to the situation today. What an intractable problem we've got ourselves into.
- johnywalks 5y ago
  As i got older i noticed that meals kept impacting my focus and productivity. I've been doing IF for the past year and it works surprisingly well. Basically, i'll have only coffee and water until 2pm and then 2 meals before 9pm. Mental focus and clarity is pretty high and consistent.
- csa 5y ago
  > my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results Another point of anecdata… My sweet spot is at a 4-5 hour feeding window — basically two meals with a short break in between. I don’t get hungry, I feel great, and my numbers are peak or near peak. One meal a day may be better, but I could never try it long enough to get reliable numbers.
bryans 5y ago
The research into fasting and the gut biome over the past few/several years has been fascinating, mostly because it all boils down to rather simple mechanisms with hugely beneficial results. I do wish that the media would respect their readers enough to delve into the details, because the "maybe, maybe not" summaries aren't helpful. To expand on the detail-light article, you're not actually "fasting" until 10-12 hours after you've finished digesting the last thing you ate, at which point you're in the "postabsorptive state." During this period, autophagy breaks down damaged cells and encourages regeneration from healthier ones, resulting in reduced inflammation throughout the body, drastically increased blood glucose control, and measurably reduced risks for a number of diseases and common health issues. The article discusses the logistics of eating schedules, but it's important to note that when it comes to autophagy, it appears that an hour is an hour. Studies into fasting 3 hours per day for one month (84-90 hours total) have roughly the same results as fasting 3-4 consecutive days in one month (72-96 total hours). So it seems that any amount of fasting you can fit into any given day is going to be beneficial. Sticking to some strict schedule may help some people keep to a routine, but it's not necessary, and may actually be detrimental for folks who feel "failure" in missing schedules or not meeting milestones. For me, the easiest way to maximize fasting hours and still feel full throughout a day, is to eat between 10am-2pm. If I wake up around 8-9am, that's approximately 6-8 hours of fasting and ~175 hours in a month. And as for the meals, I eat a large salad and then whatever else I want in those four hours. It ends up being about 1,500 calories, and at no point during the evening do I feel hungry or even think about eating. It doesn't need to be complicated, and from the research, I feel confident that I'm getting benefits from however many hours of fasting I manage to get.
- adepressedthrow 5y ago
  > The research into fasting and the gut biome over the past few/several years has been fascinating, mostly because it all boils down to rather simple mechanisms with hugely beneficial results. I do wish that the media would respect their readers enough to delve into the details, because the "maybe, maybe not" summaries aren't helpful. It's so hard to find data that is useful enough to make intelligent decisions off of. I drink non-caffinated diet Coke nearly every day; is this actually causing my gut issues and possibly depression? The drink itself is one of the bright spots in my dull days, so stopping for an experiment is hard.
shafyy 5y ago
Nutrition is such a difficult field to research and study. Not only are the mechanisms very complex and poorly understood, they also differ from person to person. But, there are a few things we know: It's more important what you eat than how / how much you eat. A home-cooked, balanced plant-based diet is probably the best "life hack" you can do (if you have the time to do it, of course). Given this, I'm a strong propononet of "listen to your body": Just eat when you feel hungry, as long as you eat healthy things (see above).
- nimbleal 5y ago
  I’m pretty sure we don’t know that. A 400lb person will probably be healthier a year from now if they eat 1500 calories of MacDonald’s a day vs. 4000 cals of “home-cooked plant-based foods”.
  - pigeonhole123 5y ago
    Veganism is also a relatively new trend, the concept apparently didn’t exist until the 60s. I’m sure Beyond Meat etc would love for this to be “common sense” though
    - jseban 5y ago
      Yeah plant based diets makes it even more complex and less understood, and they have many obvious big downsides that are not really addressed. Plant based diets are "good" if you are having issues with overeating/overweight and/or a diet lacking vegetables. I guess that's a lot of people, but definitely not everyone.
      - lasfallas 5y ago
        More complex? Less understood? Many obvious big downsides not really addressed? You have no idea what you're talking about obviously, just spreading fud.
    - shafyy 5y ago
      I think it's clear that even though beyond meat is plant-based, it's not healthy. Note that I said balanced plant-based diet.
groffee 5y ago
Interestingly 'three meals a day' comes from an American advertising campaign. The book 'Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal' goes into it all[0] It's kind of crazy that such fundamental parts of our society are shaped by advertising and after a couple of generations we all just accept it because it's 'always been like that'. [0]https://b-ok.cc/book/2226584/5b1aad https://b-ok.cc/book/2226584/5b1aad
- pigeonhole123 5y ago
  Similarly I’ve heard our fear of the sun can be traced back to a L’Oreal campaign in the 80s
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    Nonsense. Us vampires predate L’Oréal by centuries.
- jwarden 5y ago
  I read a lot of history, a lot of old books, and travel a lot, and I think that makes me more resistant to the frequent claim that “such and such is a recent invention of (oppressive, capitalistic) contemporary society.” Throughout the world that I have observed first- and second-hand, morning and evening and in-between meals have always been pretty common.
  - jwarden 5y ago
    “Eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at dinner” (Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides. 1135-1404)
- kzzzznot 5y ago
  Kellogg’s also told everyone that breakfast was the most important meal of the day https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfast-health-america-kellog-food-lifestyle https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...
gshakir 5y ago
For me, fasting in Ramadan has reduced my eating frequency and I noticed that every year during this time my resting heart rate drops significantly. It kinda tells how much your heart works on your digestion.
- tintedfireglass 5y ago
  It doesn't signify your heart slowing down because it doesn't have to digest food. A low heart rate suggests low metabolism (response of body to low amounts of carbohydrates available to it in order to be converted readily to ATP molecules and save them in case of emergencies)
lizardactivist 5y ago
I've noticed that if I choose my meal carefully, then I can eat one big meal per day at lunch, and not go hungrier than usual. It gets quite boring after a while, but breaking this once a week with an extra pizza, burger, or whatever, might be the trick to keep this up. So far I have NOT been able to keep the diet, the discipline is difficult, but from everything I read, eating less results in improved health.
OJFord 5y ago
> Data shows that if you don't eat breakfast, you're going to eat fewer calories overall that day. Interesting that that's 'science', because that's definitely my experience. I generally have 2 meals a day, skipping breakfast (maybe a late brunch), but if I do for some reason have an early/'normal' breakfast I find I'm really hungry the rest of the day, want an early lunch, want supper at a more normal time (otherwise left to my own devices I shift quite late in the day). > "In the 1950s breakfast becomes how we recognise it today: cereal and toast. Prior to that we were happy to eat a piece of bread with jam." An odd quote? Quite a generalised personal preference?
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
I eat one or two. One each of the last two days for instance. Breakfast went out 20 years ago. Just way too many calories.
jlokier 5y ago
I find the "three meals assumption" quite bizarre, as I don't remember the last time I ate three meals in one day. I usually have one meal a day, sometimes zero, sometimes two. It hasn't occurred to me to eat three meals in as long as I can remember. It sounds fun, I love good food, but that would be a binge day. So when I read articles that describe how it's the social norm to eat three meals every day, or hear people making the asumption that just about everyone does that, they sound strange. I do have snacks as well, but not a large amount and some days I don't eat anything. I'm sure my intake adds up on average, but it's not in the form of three obvious meals. There's no deliberate fasting strategy or anything. No special diet. My meals aren't particularly large either. And I do like food! I rarely drink sugar drinks so I'm not getting alternative sustenance from that. These days due to Covid isolation I rarely have a cappuccino either - though I used to enjoy those when I went out more, and I guess you could count a milky coffee as a small meal. I'm overweight with a somewhat rotund figure, btw. That's been true as long as I can remember as well.
- NoThisIsMe 5y ago
  Interesting. What's your daily caloric intake (estimate/ballpark)?

67 points by Kaibeezy 5y ago

camillomiller 5y ago

I’ll spare you the click. It’s yet another article about intermittent fasting, but with a historical perspective.

Kaibeezy 5y ago
I read it as an historical article about meal sizing/timing, with an intermittent fasting perspective. I’ve been traveling for a couple of weeks, and between the jet lag and a busy schedule, I found myself shifting to a late-breakfast-then-early-dinner two meals per day schedule, so the article was timely for me.

amriksohata 5y ago

Similarly Ayurveda (comes from Hindu sages) they say the opposite of what i was taught in school. I remember a nutritionist coming in to tell us to have a heavy breakfast, medium sized lunch and light dinner.Ayurvedaa recommends the lunch meal being the heaviest as it lines up with your Agni (digestive fire) being at peak and in synchronization with the Sun reaching its highest point.

dageshi 5y ago
I honestly think it depends a lot on climate and the type of work you do. Hot climates vs cold climates, hard manual work vs sitting at a desk. Given that range I doubt there's any one size fits all "best" regimen.
ggm 5y ago
and in synchronization with the Sun reaching its highest point. The inadequately understood influence of solar tides on digestion. Humour aside, three meals represents the sweet spot for labour to produce edible food in the circumstances we found ourselves in. Grazing would interfere with other necessities of life for most people once some kind of division of labour emerged.
imtringued 5y ago
The heavy breakfast thing originates from the fact that peope fast during their sleep which recovers their insulin sensitivity so eating breakfast makes them feel more full. If you skip breakfast and fast until lunch then you are fasting for a longer period. The human body is basically a battery that gets recharged or discharged. A lot of diets are focused around charging your body more slowly instead of discharging it. No wonder they all fail.

dmarchand90 5y ago

I swear to God I remember hearing the opposite not long ago. That frequent, smaller, meals are better as they more closely match the continual foraging of hunter-gatherers. Here's the first reference I could find: https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer... The older I get the more inconsistencies and instabilities I hear in dieting advice. I'm old enough to remember when fat was the bad guy and sugar was maybe ok

hansthehorse 5y ago
It's amazing how much sugar is in almost everything. I made an effort to cut out as much added sugar as I could and it's exhausting. There are over 50 synonyms for sugar that food companies use.
robbedpeter 5y ago
If the advice comes with a story about how such and such was similar to the diets of ancestors, it's probably unscientific to the point of parody. A wide variety in your diet prevents potential harms from chronic exposure - if you eat the same things over long periods you can accumulate unintended adulterants. Your particular genetics might result in chronic inflammation from an otherwise innocent food item. Diet should be approached as a game with unknowable hazards. Science is continually evolving, and the findings one week can be completely overturned the next, and so on. Your strategy in the diet game should be to imitate success, avoid harmful patterns, and seek variety consistently. One day we will have a thorough model for nutrition and genetics and we can use soylent style customized food. Meal pacing depends on your lifestyle, what you eat, fitness, and a myriad of other factors. There will be no one size fits all answer - there are too many confounding factors to reach a sensible conclusion except at an individual level. Someone sedentary has different requirements than an athlete who runs marathons, or a warehouse worker, librarian, or plumber. One big meal might be best for one, while munching all day could be best for another, and their colleagues might find variations more suitable to their context. One strategy is to go through an elimination experiment- eat nothing but meat, for 2 weeks, and gradually add different foods one per week, keeping a journal of subjective effects, blood pressure, satiety, weight, bowel movements, and so on. Following a fad diet

justinzollars 5y ago

I count my calories. And the easiest way I can enjoy my meals, have snacks and maybe a drink is to skip a meal. 3 large meals each day, adds up to a lot of calories, and if you snack and drink: game over.

inglor_cz 5y ago

I have been experimenting with IF for years now and my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results. (As measured by blood pressure, blood tests, body weight, the overall feeling of comfort/energy/stamina atc.) YMMV. I also noticed that the feelings of hunger are very malleable. Everyday hunger seems to be a habit. Once you are used to eating at a certain hour, you will feel hungry as it approaches, then the feeling will disappear again. It takes several days to extinguish that reflex. Looking at the state of obesity in the richer half of the world today, I wonder if we should promote IF as an alternative to contemporary eating standards. It is not a magic bullet and it may harm people with eating disorders, but the disease burden caused by overeating is an order of magnitude larger. The real trouble with IF is probably that it is nigh impossible to make money on it. Squaring market economy with less consumption - against vital interests of Coca-Cola, Nestlé etc. - seems to be impossible. It took a lot of effort to reduce prevalence of smoking, even though it smells badly and it is repulsive to non-smokers. We didn't even make a dent in alcoholism. And food is attractive, good smelling and absolutely necessary for our survival. Humanity seems to be destined for a future of gluttony. I am almost 44. During my life, I have seen children and elderly alike blowing up like balloons. Unlike many "old geezer complaints", this process is measurable and even obvious in plain sight, when you compare older street photographs to the situation today. What an intractable problem we've got ourselves into.

johnywalks 5y ago
As i got older i noticed that meals kept impacting my focus and productivity. I've been doing IF for the past year and it works surprisingly well. Basically, i'll have only coffee and water until 2pm and then 2 meals before 9pm. Mental focus and clarity is pretty high and consistent.
csa 5y ago
> my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results Another point of anecdata… My sweet spot is at a 4-5 hour feeding window — basically two meals with a short break in between. I don’t get hungry, I feel great, and my numbers are peak or near peak. One meal a day may be better, but I could never try it long enough to get reliable numbers.

bryans 5y ago

The research into fasting and the gut biome over the past few/several years has been fascinating, mostly because it all boils down to rather simple mechanisms with hugely beneficial results. I do wish that the media would respect their readers enough to delve into the details, because the "maybe, maybe not" summaries aren't helpful. To expand on the detail-light article, you're not actually "fasting" until 10-12 hours after you've finished digesting the last thing you ate, at which point you're in the "postabsorptive state." During this period, autophagy breaks down damaged cells and encourages regeneration from healthier ones, resulting in reduced inflammation throughout the body, drastically increased blood glucose control, and measurably reduced risks for a number of diseases and common health issues. The article discusses the logistics of eating schedules, but it's important to note that when it comes to autophagy, it appears that an hour is an hour. Studies into fasting 3 hours per day for one month (84-90 hours total) have roughly the same results as fasting 3-4 consecutive days in one month (72-96 total hours). So it seems that any amount of fasting you can fit into any given day is going to be beneficial. Sticking to some strict schedule may help some people keep to a routine, but it's not necessary, and may actually be detrimental for folks who feel "failure" in missing schedules or not meeting milestones. For me, the easiest way to maximize fasting hours and still feel full throughout a day, is to eat between 10am-2pm. If I wake up around 8-9am, that's approximately 6-8 hours of fasting and ~175 hours in a month. And as for the meals, I eat a large salad and then whatever else I want in those four hours. It ends up being about 1,500 calories, and at no point during the evening do I feel hungry or even think about eating. It doesn't need to be complicated, and from the research, I feel confident that I'm getting benefits from however many hours of fasting I manage to get.

adepressedthrow 5y ago
> The research into fasting and the gut biome over the past few/several years has been fascinating, mostly because it all boils down to rather simple mechanisms with hugely beneficial results. I do wish that the media would respect their readers enough to delve into the details, because the "maybe, maybe not" summaries aren't helpful. It's so hard to find data that is useful enough to make intelligent decisions off of. I drink non-caffinated diet Coke nearly every day; is this actually causing my gut issues and possibly depression? The drink itself is one of the bright spots in my dull days, so stopping for an experiment is hard.

shafyy 5y ago

Nutrition is such a difficult field to research and study. Not only are the mechanisms very complex and poorly understood, they also differ from person to person. But, there are a few things we know: It's more important what you eat than how / how much you eat. A home-cooked, balanced plant-based diet is probably the best "life hack" you can do (if you have the time to do it, of course). Given this, I'm a strong propononet of "listen to your body": Just eat when you feel hungry, as long as you eat healthy things (see above).

nimbleal 5y ago
I’m pretty sure we don’t know that. A 400lb person will probably be healthier a year from now if they eat 1500 calories of MacDonald’s a day vs. 4000 cals of “home-cooked plant-based foods”.
- pigeonhole123 5y ago
  Veganism is also a relatively new trend, the concept apparently didn’t exist until the 60s. I’m sure Beyond Meat etc would love for this to be “common sense” though
  - jseban 5y ago
    Yeah plant based diets makes it even more complex and less understood, and they have many obvious big downsides that are not really addressed. Plant based diets are "good" if you are having issues with overeating/overweight and/or a diet lacking vegetables. I guess that's a lot of people, but definitely not everyone.
    - lasfallas 5y ago
      More complex? Less understood? Many obvious big downsides not really addressed? You have no idea what you're talking about obviously, just spreading fud.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    I think it's clear that even though beyond meat is plant-based, it's not healthy. Note that I said balanced plant-based diet.

groffee 5y ago

Interestingly 'three meals a day' comes from an American advertising campaign. The book 'Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal' goes into it all[0] It's kind of crazy that such fundamental parts of our society are shaped by advertising and after a couple of generations we all just accept it because it's 'always been like that'. [0]https://b-ok.cc/book/2226584/5b1aad https://b-ok.cc/book/2226584/5b1aad

pigeonhole123 5y ago
Similarly I’ve heard our fear of the sun can be traced back to a L’Oreal campaign in the 80s
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  Nonsense. Us vampires predate L’Oréal by centuries.
jwarden 5y ago
I read a lot of history, a lot of old books, and travel a lot, and I think that makes me more resistant to the frequent claim that “such and such is a recent invention of (oppressive, capitalistic) contemporary society.” Throughout the world that I have observed first- and second-hand, morning and evening and in-between meals have always been pretty common.
- jwarden 5y ago
  “Eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at dinner” (Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides. 1135-1404)
kzzzznot 5y ago
Kellogg’s also told everyone that breakfast was the most important meal of the day https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfast-health-america-kellog-food-lifestyle https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...

gshakir 5y ago

For me, fasting in Ramadan has reduced my eating frequency and I noticed that every year during this time my resting heart rate drops significantly. It kinda tells how much your heart works on your digestion.

tintedfireglass 5y ago
It doesn't signify your heart slowing down because it doesn't have to digest food. A low heart rate suggests low metabolism (response of body to low amounts of carbohydrates available to it in order to be converted readily to ATP molecules and save them in case of emergencies)

lizardactivist 5y ago

I've noticed that if I choose my meal carefully, then I can eat one big meal per day at lunch, and not go hungrier than usual. It gets quite boring after a while, but breaking this once a week with an extra pizza, burger, or whatever, might be the trick to keep this up. So far I have NOT been able to keep the diet, the discipline is difficult, but from everything I read, eating less results in improved health.

OJFord 5y ago

> Data shows that if you don't eat breakfast, you're going to eat fewer calories overall that day. Interesting that that's 'science', because that's definitely my experience. I generally have 2 meals a day, skipping breakfast (maybe a late brunch), but if I do for some reason have an early/'normal' breakfast I find I'm really hungry the rest of the day, want an early lunch, want supper at a more normal time (otherwise left to my own devices I shift quite late in the day). > "In the 1950s breakfast becomes how we recognise it today: cereal and toast. Prior to that we were happy to eat a piece of bread with jam." An odd quote? Quite a generalised personal preference?

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

I eat one or two. One each of the last two days for instance. Breakfast went out 20 years ago. Just way too many calories.

jlokier 5y ago

I find the "three meals assumption" quite bizarre, as I don't remember the last time I ate three meals in one day. I usually have one meal a day, sometimes zero, sometimes two. It hasn't occurred to me to eat three meals in as long as I can remember. It sounds fun, I love good food, but that would be a binge day. So when I read articles that describe how it's the social norm to eat three meals every day, or hear people making the asumption that just about everyone does that, they sound strange. I do have snacks as well, but not a large amount and some days I don't eat anything. I'm sure my intake adds up on average, but it's not in the form of three obvious meals. There's no deliberate fasting strategy or anything. No special diet. My meals aren't particularly large either. And I do like food! I rarely drink sugar drinks so I'm not getting alternative sustenance from that. These days due to Covid isolation I rarely have a cappuccino either - though I used to enjoy those when I went out more, and I guess you could count a milky coffee as a small meal. I'm overweight with a somewhat rotund figure, btw. That's been true as long as I can remember as well.

NoThisIsMe 5y ago
Interesting. What's your daily caloric intake (estimate/ballpark)?