A method of separating signals from water and lipid in a body using spin-echo magnetic resonance imaging comprising steps of acquiring image signals at three acquisition times asymmetrically positioned with respect to a spin-echo time, the three acquisition times being separated by 2.pi./3 and the middle signal acquisition is centered at .pi.2+.pi.k where k is an integer, and combining the plurality of image signals iterative using a least squares decomposition method.