IN the time you spend each morning calibrating your hair gel, you could be doing something more important, with a much better payoff: eating breakfast. Mom was right (and it's okay to admit it): Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

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. Two slices whole-wheat bread 1/2 c Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal; One carton fat-free milk; One carton frozen blueberries; 11-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.

Grab-and-Go Breakfast

Prep time: 1 minute. One medium apple 1/2 pint fat-free milk; one bran Vita muffin; one 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.

Minute Omelette with Toast

Prep time: 2 minutes. One egg; 3/4 c frozen spinach thawed; one slice Canadian bacon, diced; two slices whole-wheat bread; one tablespoon almond butter; One carton 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.

(SD-Agencies)