What's for breakfast? If you are like so many other Americans who skimp on breakfast, you can expect your stomach to be growling and your blood sugar level dropping long before lunch time. But there's worse news: you might gain weight, too. Skip breakfast, and that box of high-fat, low quality, powdered sugar covered mini donuts in the vending machine starts to look edible. Make a daily habit of sloshing two or three of them down with a cup of oily black office coffee, and you've got a recipe for flab.

What if you're on a diet? Skipping the first meal of the day seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Less food equals fewer calories to turn into fat. Right. Except, when you don't eat breakfast your metabolism slows way down, and your body gets the message to conserve energy, not burn it. Skipping's just not a good idea, and you won't lose weight from doing it.

Eating breakfast may seem like a chore, especially if you don't wake up feeling hungry. Before the workday begins, many of us like to get by in the morning with just a cup of coffee or tea and a piece of toast or a muffin. This routine will get you going, but this type of breakfast won't provide your body with enough energy to last until lunch.

It really is true that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When your body receives a high quality, nutritional bowl of hot-cooked whole grain cereal or yummy steel cut oats, it has plenty of energy to run on till at least lunch time. Dieters can really benefit from having a high quality, low fat breakfast such as oatmeal before going to work. You won't look twice at the bowl of kisses on the office kitchen table, or that slice of chocolate birthday cake that your office-mate brought for you.

Sliced pears, kiwis, apples or a handful of fresh, organic berries makes a naturally sweet and nutritious addition to any whole grain hot cereal. Eat breakfast, stay healthy and lose weight naturally.