Many people think that by skipping a meal, they eat less food and therefore it's an effective way to help them lose weight. However they fail to recognize that our bodies do not operate this way.

Skipping meals leads to low blood sugar. This can cause sudden hunger pangs which can cause bingeing and/or food cravings. Either way, it's bad for weight loss. For example, diet-research indicates that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight than those who eat a proper breakfast.

If we skip a meal, our body will think that we are in starvation mode and therefore slow down its metabolism to compensate. By slowing our metabolism, our body is using (burning) fewer calories to conserve fuel. By skipping a meal, w tend to overeat at the next meal. Often times, skipping a meal results in our eating more calories at the next meal. A better approach is to eat smaller frequent healthy meals and snacks to keep our hunger in check. Better still, look for ways to increase your metabolism. One good way is to increase your daily level of physical activity by taking up walking, biking or other active past-times. Physical activity increases metabolism, the speed with which our body burns calories.

Additional Resources: 

http://www.consumerhealthdigest.com/skipmeals.htm

 http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/he550