This question has been answered in both my books and the answer is: YES. You can eat any food you want, regardless of what you’re doing - whether it’s losing weight, maintaining it, or trying to gain some.

No food has magical properties that somehow overcome the laws of thermodynamics and make you get fatter or leaner beyond what their nutrient contents suggest.

Forget the reputations that a food has. Most people are not nutrition experts and thus, the popular opinion of whether or not a food is good or bad for you, is based almost completely on the opinion of uneducated individuals. There is no reason to listen to such opinions.

No problem. Our body doesn’t label our meals like that and it gives no specific value to such meal times.

The only thing to keep in mind is that your body does like to operate in a rhythm. What that means is that it becomes accustomed to receiving nutrients at roughly the same time every day - assuming you stick to a pattern. And when you disrupt that pattern you may experience discomfort and some hormonal imbalance that can hinder dieting efforts.

But this “pattern” is completely yours to make. You aren’t born with a pattern that says “Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner”. That’s something humans thought up and enforced out of practicality because of the modern lifestyle and employment reasons.

No. It’s not required in the slightest. It is, however, recommended. Very much so. Not only does exercising burn extra calories, which help us to lose weight faster and more comfortably, it also helps to grow and retain muscle mass.

When you lose weight without exercising, you risk not only burning off fat tissue, but also muscle tissue. That results in lowered strength, stamina, energy levels, as well as increased injury risks. Visually, your end result is also likely to suffer. If your muscle mass drops too low, you will never look “fit”, no matter how little you end up weighing. Your body will remain somewhat “flabby” even when you’ve reached and maybe passed your initial weight loss goals.

You need that muscle mass to look “toned”, to look fit and healthy.

But strictly speaking - it is not required to lose weight or burn fat.