The Myth of Three Squares

A study by David Jenkins, MD, PhD—the University of Toronto pioneer in low-glycemic eating---demonstrates that eating small portions at frequent intervals is good for your health in a number of important, even remarkable ways.

The researchers divided their subjects into two groups. Both ate the exact same food with the exact same number of calories. But one group ate their food divided into the usual three meals a day. The other ate more often, consuming lots of little meals.

Surprisingly, the group that ate small meals throughout the day lost more weight. It wasn’t that they were less hungry (although, in fact, they were less hungry). They lost weight because their blood sugar didn’t continually spike and then dip down to an even lower level, the way it does after a big meal. Their glycemic levels—the amount of sugar in their blood---remained steady…and their craving for sweet foods went down.

That’s not all. After only two weeks, they found that the people who ate every three hours reduced their blood cholesterol by over 15 percent and their blood insulin by almost 28 percent. That’s key—because, in addition to regulating your blood sugar level, insulin plays a pivotal role in fat metabolism, inflammation, and progression to metabolic syndrome. When your body produces insulin, you’re much less likely to convert dietary calories into body fat. Your body begins to work differently, and you’re no longer the fat factory you once were.

So what does this study tell us? That it’s not just what you eat, it’s WHEN you eat it. Small amounts of nourishment throughout the day are better than the same amount of food concentrated in three big hits!