Four meals a day
As per the Doctors, if you are someone with an ectomorph body type (thinnest body type with irregular appetite) or mesomorph (with a high metabolic fire), it is suggested to split your food intake into four meals, adding that four meals a day are helpful when you are dealing with dips in energy, ‘hangry’ moments, and focusing on recovery.
Ensure to eat only when hungry, eat 80 per cent of your appetite, avoid heavy meals after sunset, and finish your meal at least 2-3 hours before bedtime.
Three meals a day
If you are healthy, you should have three meals a day. This is a balanced lifestyle where you have a light breakfast, a big lunch, and a small dinner before sunset with 14-16 hours of intermittent fasting.
However, the expert elucidated that a person having three meals a day is called ‘rogi’ meaning someone “who has a tendency to get diseases quickly, due to accumulation of undigested metabolic waste over a period of time”.
Two meals a day
This is an ideal way to eat as per yoga and Ayurveda. This is because it allows you a six-hour gap between both meals which is the Ayurvedic way of intermittent fasting.
You are allowing your body time to fully digest, absorb, and assimilate the nutrients, before introducing the next meal. Someone who has two meals a day is called ‘bhogi’ in yoga, which means ‘one who relishes food.
One meal a day
When a person has reached their optimum health and metabolism, they will be able to adapt to a lifestyle of a single meal every day with 23 hours of intermittent fasting.
Such a person is called ‘yogi’ capable of intense thoughts, heightened intellectual and spiritual capabilities, which is further aided by the lightness of their body, the Ayurvedic expert explained.