Skipping meals will not -- I repeat -- will not lead to healthy, permanent weight loss. By doing without a breakfast here and a lunch there, you may take off a few pounds at first, but eventually eating in such a careless way will catch up with you and your body will send itself into "starvation mode" and start banking the calories you do eat. This means you will inevitably hit a plateau and not lose at all. You simply must give your body the fuel it needs to run on.

A good rule of thumb is that you actually shouldn't go more than four or five hours without eating something. If you don't make a habit of eating that often, you may find yourself feeling light-headed or weak. Your body will definitely start sending hunger signals, and, in the end if you force yourself not to eat when you feel hungry... by the time you do sit down to finally eat something, you will be very prone to over-eat. When all is said and done you could feasibly take in as many -- or more -- calories during a binge than you would have eating three square meals! Thus, by skipping meals, you will do more harm than good.

Why not pre-prepare and schedule mini-snacks to eat every couple of hours? Plan to have single servings of easily-"munchable" foods on-hand. Single-serving yogurts or cubes of reduced-fat cheese make a great snack to have on hand in the mini-fridge. Don't have a way to keep your snack stash cool at work? Make your munchies something you can keep in your desk drawer. Dry cereal, raisins, carrot sticks are all common fare, but you can also jazz things up by doing things like throwing in zucchini sticks with those plain Jane carrot sticks. Or try reduced-fat pretzels dipped in honey mustard. Mix in some almond slivers with vanilla yogurt. Yum! Snack time doesn't have to be boring! By including a little variety in your planned mini-meals, you'll look forward to your snack break and you'll be less tempted by that vending machine in the corner.