Metabolically humans alternate between anabolic and catabolic modes: sleep and eat more, then work more with less sleep and food. Human metabolism is a sophisticated system for smoothing out highly variable energy intake. Always eating the same three squares a day isn't synergistic. I have found skipping meals when busy to be a very good idea. There's a reason all cultures have traditional fast and feast cycles.

The idea of sustained caloric restriction, however, is probably stupid. You just want variable intake, not low intake. First of all, the studies are only of rats and worms. Secondly, the studies fail to control for the fact that the starved animals get more exercise whereas the well fed animals languidly sit around.