Not sure what you mean by "recognized protocol". If you Google "eating every 3 hours" you'll see a lot of information on that topic. There is a book called The 3-Hour Diet by Jorge Cruise that was pretty popular. I haven't read it.

Diets like Medifast and Diet Direct adopt that same practice of small protein meals eaten often throughout the day. Medifast requires 5 of their meals and one of your own making per day. I am not advocating Medifast products at all. They use soy protein, chemicals, and taste pretty bad by and large. But having done the diet, I do know how to do the 5 small meals plus one regular meal thing.

My small meals/snacks consist of things like a pouch of tuna salad, can of chicken, chicken strips, beef jerky, Quest bars, Quest chips, almond butter, hard boiled egg, protein shake... you get the picture - anything that is high protein, low carb and doesn't exceed around 175-200 calories. I don't worry about fat content. Then I prepare a meal of meat or fish, and a green veg or salad in the evening. Since I work, I had to find things that would be convenient to take to work and would be easy prepare/eat with limited kitchen facilities. If you don't work, you could expand greatly on the kinds of small meals available to you.

A couple of months ago, when I realized that intermittent fasting was not cuttin' the mustard anymore. I Googled "menopause and intermittent fasting". What came up was unexpected and very interesting. There was a lot of information and personal testimony that fasting was not healthy for, and didn't work well for post-menopausal women. You can Google it to read about why. But it made sense to me from my own personal experience, because not only was I gaining weight doing it, I also was feeling like crap. So I thought, if fasting is a bust now, how about trying the opposite - eating every 2-3 hours throughout the day. All I can say is that it's working for me.

So now you know everything I know on the topic. You just have to experiment with different things. I don't worry much about protocol on how to do it. I try things all the time that I never heard of anyone else doing. Some work, some don't. Mostly what works is a combination of things that I've experienced over the years - which are ever-changing as I age.

Having said all this, there are those post-menopausal women who have great success with intermittent fasting. Cest la vie!