If you’re skipping breakfast, you’re not doing your body good. The health benefits of a morning meal include weight control, mental focus and overall well-being. Here’s how to choose a delicious, nutritious breakfast that will help you achieve your weight-loss and fitness goals…

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

You’ve probably heard that adage dozens of times, but do you heed it?

Most Americans don’t – they eat their biggest meal at night; 20% don’t have breakfast at all.

“We should be eating the exact opposite way,” says Karen E. Brewton, R.D., a clinical dietitian at Methodist Wellness Services in Houston. “We don’t need a huge meal [when] we’re getting ready to rest.”

In fact, breakfast isn’t just important, it’s vital – to weight loss and fitness goals, well-being and performing at your mental best.

Your brain needs morning fuel (glucose), which is provided by food, especially carbohydrates. Without a nutritious breakfast, you’ll suffer a mental slump by mid-morning.

Skipping your morning meal may seem like a simple way to cut calories. Yet all the respected research shows that breakfast is essential for maintaining a healthy weight.

“I have patients who skip breakfast to limit their day’s food intake,” Brewton says. “These are the absolute wrong calories to cut if weight loss is their goal.”

Those who pass on breakfast end up overeating at lunch and dinner, more than making up for the morning calorie deficit, Brewton says.

The most convincing evidence comes from the National Weight Control Registry, an organization that studies successful long-term weight loss. It compiled data on 6,000 people who’ve lost 30 pounds and maintained the loss for at least a year. Nearly 80% of these successful losers said they eat a morning meal every day.

And a 2008 study of 12,000 adults published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating a healthy breakfast promoted wise food choices the rest of the day.

Best bet: Eggs! Men and women who ate two eggs for breakfast lost 65% more weight and showed a 61% greater reduction in BMI than those who ate a bagel, according to a 2008 Saint Louis University study.

Obviously, you can’t eat eggs fried in butter and achieve this result. Try these low-fat, low-calorie cooking methods instead:

• Poaching. Just break eggs into hot water and cook until firm. Serve over whole-wheat toast with fruit on the side.
• Hard-boiling. Hard-boiled eggs last a week in the fridge, so keep a half-dozen on hand. A whole-grain English muffin and a cup of berries are perfect accompaniments.
• Microwaving. Mix eggs with chopped bell pepper, onion, mushroom and low-fat cheese and pour into a mug. Nuke for 45 seconds or until cooked through (stirring if needed). Eat as an omelet or plop the veggie-egg disc on toast.
• Baking. Create a “crustless quiche” by pouring an egg-veggie mixture into muffin tins; bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes (or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean). Freeze leftovers, then heat them in the microwave for less than a minute.