1. Eat twice your body weight in protein.

Note that this tip does not mean the food on your plate should weigh more than you do. It means you should eat twice the amount of protein in grams as your body weighs in pounds. So if you weigh 130 pounds, your protein consumption should be around 260 grams.

2. Eat different types of proteins.

While meat is one of the most common sources of protein, other protein-rich foods are available that you can include in your diet. The more types of proteins you eat, the better because each of the brings something different to the table. So don’t just stick to a diet of pork and beef. Try alternating these foods with fish, soy, beans, cottage cheese, and eggs for more variety.

3. The more active you are, the more protein you need.

People who take part in strenuous and constant physical activities such as sports and aerobics require more protein in their diets. If you fail to consume adequate amounts of protein, your muscles will weaken and become slack. This is why most coaches of football or basketball teams encourage their athletes to eat a high-protein diet especially during the playing season.

4. Drink plenty of water.

Drink eight to ten glasses of water daily if you want to gain muscle as fast as possible. This amount should be enough to replace the fluids you lose during your workouts and while performing other daily activities.

5. Take protein supplements.

Many people these days are not able to get all the vitamins and nutrients they need from their regular meals due to the lack of time to prepare healthy home-cooked food. You can solve this problem by taking protein supplements, which you can buy from most health stores. When taking these supplements, however, make sure that you increase your fluid intake in order to avoid damage to the liver or the kidney, which are possibilities with a high-protein diet. Better yet, talk to your doctor before you start taking protein supplements.

6. Don’t forget to eat your carbs.

A lot of people equate eating carbohydrates with becoming overweight, so they tend to avoid eating carbohydrates whenever they can. Carbohydrates, however, are essential in producing energy in the body. A diet too low in carbs will eventually make you weak and sluggish. Don’t worry about the weight you may gain from eating carbohydrates. If you are following an active exercise routine, you can burn off the extra carbs with just a couple of workouts.

Realize that gaining muscle is not something that can be done overnight. There are no real shortcuts for this process so you should avoid taking steroids and similar substances, as they will only be harmful to your health in the long run.

Cinergy Health & Life Insurance Agency is dedicated to providing quality health and life insurance plans for people in a variety of life situations. For more information on a selection of health, insurance and medical topics, visit the Cinergy Health & Life Learning Center at www.cinergyhealth.com .

The prevailing medical model in the US is for us to wait until we become ill, see a doctor and take whatever drugs the doctor prescribes to treat our symptoms. Most people never question how they came to be ill or what might be done to bring them back to health. Instead we blindly do what the doctor tells us to do. This keeps the doctors busy and makes the drug company’s rich but most of the time it does not make us healthy.

What we need to do instead is to first take responsibility for our own health. We need to be proactive. We need to exercise regularly even if walking is the most you can do. We need to continually ask ourselves if we are eating the right foods, drinking the right beverages, taking the right supplements.

Most of us will not become perfectly compliant or healthy overnight. These lifestyle modifications are extremely difficult and take time but small changes made over a long period of time will make a big difference in our health and longevity.

As a practicing pharmacist, I see too many people taking far too many drugs. Customers come to me all day long and ask “What can I take for _______?”. They want a quick fix, not a solution. I try to give them sound advice meant to help them understand what caused the problem, how to treat the symptoms for the short term, but also how make changes to avoid the same problem from occurring in the future.

My goal for this website is to provide education to you, my friends, to help you understand how the body works, what it needs to achieve and maintain optimal health and vitality. Over time I plan to write articles, interview experts and to do whatever else it takes to help you achieve your goals.

For now, in order to provide for my family, I’ll have to keep my job as a pharmacist with a national chain but my goal is to help enough of you to be able to afford to leave that job within the next 2 years and devote full time to helping you. That would make me truly happy.

Please come back to my site regularly, subscribe to the RSS feed, tell your friends and family and let me know what you would like to see, hear and learn by leaving comments about articles and responding to my questions.

Until next time, To Your Good Health!

Marc