How many meals in a day?

Do a google search and you'll find a lot of conflicting information about how many meals a day you should eat.  Some sources say stick to the typical 3.  Some suggest more frequent, smaller meals, perhaps eating 5 or 6 times a day.  Some advocate a constant grazing all day.  Still others suggest fasting all day and feasting all night.

Personally, I find that what works best for me is to just eat when I'm hungry.  This would never have worked for me before I switched to a primal diet because I would frequently confuse things like a drop in blood sugar (that shaky feeling) or boredom or just being near food as hunger cues.  One of the most noticeable differences since switching to a primal diet is that those false hunger cues no longer affect me.  For the first time in my life, I can hear my body's true, quiet cues indicating when it's time to refuel.

Sometimes I only eat two meals in a day.  Often I won't be very hungry first thing in the morning and I wait until nearly 11am before I have my first meal of the day.  If it's a big enough meal I may not eat again until dinner time.  Or sometimes, like today, I end up extra hungry in the evening and eat dinner twice.

Today started out like a two-meal day.  I had a large meal around 11am.  We'll call it brunch.  It was going to be a three-egg omelet but I stuffed it too full so it ended up as a scramble instead.  I topped it with avocado and served it with some berries. 

BRUNCH
- Scrambled eggs with Fra' Mani ham, spinach, Irish cheddar cheese, avocado and Garlic Gold Sea Salt Nuggets
- Fresh raspberries topped with crème fraîche

After brunch I managed to find the one break in the stormy weather today to get outside for a little while.  I walked a mile then did a slow 2.5 mile run at a comfortable pace and got back home about 1 minute before the rain started again.

ACTIVITY
1 mile walk, 2.5 mile run

Our family calendar for this evening was full and it required that we split up in order to attend everything.  The boys took off for basketball practice.  My daughter and I had a meeting at our church later in the evening so we opted to eat dinner out before going.

We visited Rockwell's American Grill (same place we ate brunch on Sunday) and I ordered their Steak Burger minus the bun with an Apple & Walnut salad (my daughter ate all my apple slices).

(FIRST) DINNER
STEAK BURGER: Ground short ribs, bacon, Maytag blue cheese, carmelized onions, grilled portobella
APPLE & WALNUT SALAD: Mixed greens, walnuts, apple slices (my daughter ate them all), grilled red onion, Mission figs, Maytag blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette
WINE: Cabernet Sauvignon

When we got home from our meeting I was feeling hungry again.  It turns out that the boys had ordered pizza for their dinner.  So now you're thinking, "Delivery pizza?  How is that primal?"  Well it's not if you eat it like this:

But if you scrape the toppings from a slice of pizza onto a plate full of lettuce you have a more primal meal that I like to call Pizza-Topping Salad!  Lots of veggies, some cheese, a bit of meat and no crust. 

(SECOND) DINNER
Pizza-Topping Salad

And since I was still a bit hungry after the salad I dished up the last of the raspberries for dessert, topped with mascarpone cheese, a few walnuts and served with a chunk of dark chocolate.

DESSERT
raspberries, walnuts, mascarpone, almond sea-salt dark chocolate