Three meals a day may be key to weightloss

Why three square meals may be best.

If you want to lose weight, eating three meals a day may be better than grazing on six small meals, say researchers from Purdue University in Indiana, US. A study of obese men on low-kilojoule, high-protein diets found those who ate three meals a day felt less hungry than those who ate a series of smaller meals.

"These mini-meals everyone is talking about don't seem to be as beneficial as far as appetite control [goes]," says lead researcher Heather Leidy. Participants were put on a normal-protein or high-protein diet for 12 weeks. Researchers found that those in the high-protein group who ate just three meals felt fuller. Leidy says they are not advocating an Atkins-style diet, however, as the study diets included lots of fibre, fruit and vegies too.