[now__what]

> reduced time between meals not allowing people to exercise their lipid transport in reverse.

I hadn't heard of this before, but it's interesting; despite receiving guidance to consume smaller, more frequent meals, I've found the practice has a negative effect on my own energy levels and weight stability.

Would you mind elaborating on this point, or providing links to further reading?

[twawaaay]

It is called fasting. It has been practiced for entirety of human history in all societies except for last couple of decades.

Fasting is an opportunity for the body to burn stored fats. Insulin is a hormone that tells every cell in the body to take sugars from the bloodstream and effectively prevents burning stored fats. When cells are used to burning sugars all the time, when given access to sugars and fats they will chose sugars preferentially. So as long as they have supply of sugar there is very little fat burning happening.

What's more, when you stop eating for a moment, for whatever reason, your body still does not have ability to burn much fat for energy because the metabolic pathways to do it are too dormant to provide enough energy on a moments notice. You become hungry which is your body telling you it can't get energy and you resolve the only way to fix the issue is by putting more carbohydrate-rich food in your mouth.

Fasting periods are necessary for the body to train those metabolic pathways. For example, by eliminating breakfast and not snacking in the evening you can easily double the time it takes between two meals giving couple of hours each day during which your body has to get energy from the fats. Over time your body relearns to burn fats and when you don't eat for a moment for whatever reason it is able to start burning fats faster and start providing more energy lessening the feeling of hunger and immediate need to put more food in your mouth.

Fasting is the normal state of the human body. We have evolved in conditions where food was relatively scarce and when we finally caught something, we had to eat it here and now and then move on and wait until we are able to catch something else at unknown future time.

This means we have evolved to accept food for a relatively short portion of time, be very good at storing energy as fat and then to use this fat for a long time until we could catch something else.

[now__what]

Very interesting, thank you!

This correlates perfectly with my experience: When I've tried to incorporate breakfast or other frequent small meals into my diet, I've found it wreaks havoc on my energy levels and feeling of fullness throughout the day. Without attempting to "fast," I've found that I feel best and experience fewer "crashes" when I skip breakfast and after-dinner snacks. You've just explained a convincing reason why that would be the case.

[plutonorm]

Yeah. But no. I naturally seem to eat once a day and am thoroughly overweight.