It keeps you slim: Breakfast eaters are less likely to be overweight than breakfast skippers, and successful dieters are also more likely to be breakfast eaters.
 
It keeps you healthy: Eating breakfast may reduce your risk of serious illnesses like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, and it strengthens your immune system so you're more resistant to common ailments like colds and the flu.

It keeps you sharp: Memory and concentration get a boost from breakfast. A study on children found that kids who eat breakfast score higher on tests and are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity. It should help you at the office, too.

The Perfect Meal

You say you eat breakfast? Good boy. Even so, it's likely you're doing it wrong. "Most men make the mistake of eating too little in the morning, and then get so hungry they go overboard and eat a giant meal later in the day," says Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D., a nutritionist in Irvine, California, and author of Stealth Health.
 
A typical breakfast is just a couple of hundred calories, mostly in the form of simple carbohydrates that spike blood-sugar levels and leave the body starving for energy a couple of hours later.
 
Even a classic fiber-rich breakfast -- say a cup of raisin bran with blueberries and skim milk -- provides less than 300 calories and only about 10 grams of protein. An ideal breakfast needs to be much larger -- between 500 and 600 calories. And it needs to be packed with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, including at least 20 grams of protein and at least 5 grams of fiber. That will give your body a high-quality, long-lasting, steady supply of energy to help you through the morning.
 
Here's how to hit those numbers. Each of the following meals tastes great and can be made in minutes.

 Blueberry Smoothie With Toasted-Cheese Sandwich

Prep time: 4 minutes
2 slices whole-wheat bread
1/2 c Kashi Go Lean Crunch! cereal
1 c fat-free milk
1 c frozen blueberries
1 1-oz slice Cheddar cheese
 
Pop the bread into the toaster. Dump the cereal, milk, and berries into a blender and liquefy. Stick a slice of Cheddar between the warm slices of toast and nuke the sandwich in a microwave for 15 seconds. It tastes grilled -- but isn't.
 
Benefits: "The cheese and milk in this meal are essential for building and maintaining new muscle," says Christine Rosenbloom, Ph.D., R.D., a professor of nutrition at Georgia State University. "The whole grains in the bread and cereal will help lower cholesterol, and the minerals in the milk and cheese will help keep blood-pressure levels down."
 
Per meal: 509 calories, 26 grams (g) protein, 75 g carbohydrates, 14 g total fat, 12 g fiber

Grab-and-Go Breakfast

Prep time: 1 minute
1 medium apple
1/2 pint fat-free milk
1 bran Vita muffin
1 pack Skippy Squeeze Stix peanut butter
 
Slice the apple, grab the milk, muffin, and peanut butter, and go. Squeeze the peanut butter out of its pack onto your apple slices as you eat.
 
Benefits: Vita muffins (vitalicious.com) contain 100 percent of your recommended intake of several important nutrients, including vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, and E. Foods high in monounsaturated fats -- like peanut butter -- may boost testosterone levels. This meal should help you burn energy more efficiently and lift more weight at the gym.
 
Per meal: 506 calories, 20 g protein, 87 g carbohydrates, 12 g total fat, 15 g fiber

Minute Omelette with Toast

Prep time: 2 minutes
1 egg
3/4 c frozen spinach, thawed
1 slice Canadian bacon, diced
2 slices whole-wheat bread
1 Tbsp almond butter
1 c Welch's grape juice
 
Stir together the egg, spinach, and Canadian bacon and pour onto a plate coated with nonstick spray. Microwave for 1 minute or until the egg is fully cooked. Toast the bread and eat it with the almond butter. Chase everything with grape juice.
 
Benefits: Monounsaturated fat in the almond spread will help prevent spikes and drops in blood sugar, which can leave you feeling tired or crabby. Grape juice gives you an antioxidant, called resveratrol, that not only helps lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels but also helps improve bloodflow to the heart.
 
Per meal: 540 calories, 25 g protein, 73 g carbohydrates, 19 g total fat, 8 g fiber

Go to the next page to read more breakfast recipes.

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