While it may sound clichéd, there is much truth to the old saying that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Often, many people skip breakfast believing in the misguided notion that it will help them lose weight. Other people who skip breakfast offer excuses such as being too busy to eat it.

Eating breakfast regularly not only helps you slim down quick but also benefits overall health, and here are some of the reasons why. When you're asleep, the body is deprived of both food and water. This means that by the time you wake up, you've depleted your protein levels, your blood sugar is low, and you're dehydrated. Further, your metabolism will have significantly slowed down while you were sleeping.

So, your body actually wakes up in survival mode. In order to shift out of the survival mode and negate its damaging effects, your body needs essential nutrients.

Survival mode forces your body to store fat and waste healthy muscle tissue. Eating Breakfast will set your body's metabolic processes into motion. A good breakfast will boost your metabolism, reverse muscle catabolism, restore your blood sugar levels, and hydrate your body.

Activating your body's fat burning processes and methods will become harder if your body stays in survival mode for longer. Breakfast should be eaten within 30 minutes of waking up. In fact, sooner is better if you want to slim down quick.

Now that you know the importance of breakfast, let's move on to what your typical breakfast should consist of. It's best not to overly restrict caloric intake at breakfast; the body has already been deprived of nourishment all night long. The body needs plenty of energy for your daily activities, and calories are the body's fuel.

To slim down quick, add an extra 100 to 200 calories to breakfast, as compared to other meals; this will give your body the required caloric boost that it needs. Simpler carbohydrates such as fresh fruit or low-fat yogurt are quickly absorbed by the body and are ideal foods for breakfast. Simple carbohydrates provide the much required boost to your blood sugar levels in the morning, which are already reduced, but eating them at any other time of the day, can cause an imbalance in them. A high quality, lean protein source should also be included to your breakfast so as to reverse muscle catabolism and help maintain muscle mass. You can find the protein you need in egg whites or whey protein shakes.

You should always drink sufficient water at breakfast. Since you don't drink water when you sleep, when you wake up, you are very dehydrated. You should be drinking 10 to 16 ounces of water with your breakfast or as soon as can upon waking up.

Water aids the fat burning and muscle building processes (important if you want to slim down quick) and provides a whole host of important health benefits.