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Who's right about meal frequency and weight loss?

For years, we've been told that eating little and often-grazing rather than gorging-helps you lose weight, control your hunger and stay healthier.

"Countless numbers of research studies have confirmed the power of eating every three hours," writes Jorge Cruise, author of the 3-Hour DietT.

What happens if you wait more than three hours before you eat?

According to Cruise, your body "passes a tipping point and signals your body to launch its natural 'starvation protection mechanism' or your SPM. When your SPM is switched on, your body preserves the most calorie-rich tissue in the body to ensure your survival. That tissue is body fat."

"Anytime you allow more than three hours to pass without eating," Cruise adds, "your body not only preserves body fat, but worst of all it begins to cannibalize precious fat-burning muscle. Yes, by waiting more than three hours to eat you lose muscle tissue."

As you might have guessed, not everyone agrees that eating little and often is the best way to eat if you want to lose fat. Some argue that stop-start eating, as they claim our hunter-gatherer ancestors did, is actually a better option.

Eating six or seven meals makes you "more resistant to the action of insulin," says Evolutionary Fitness guru Art De Vany. "Hence, your body must make more of it. As your insulin drifts upward and you become resistant, you're on your way to the Metabolic Syndrome X: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, and a pre-diabetic state. No wonder a number of bodybuilders develop diabetes."

In The Warrior Diet , Ori Hofmekler rejects the "six mini-meals" a day approach and claims you can attain excellent health by following a daily feeding cycle of "undereating" during the day and "overeating" at night.

According to Hofmekler, eating one meal a day at night "puts the body in a most beneficial biological cycle in which it...

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