to ensure that your digestive system functions properly. Do not eat in a hurry or under stress. Enjoy food, chew it slowly and do not be distracted while eating. Eat at fixed times.

Eat more often.

Eat five or more meals a day. Drink plenty of fluids that supply calories like juices, protein shakes, and sports beverages. Eat starchy grains and vegetables, such as rice, oats, pasta and potatoes. Add yoghurt, sour cream, sauces and dressings to plain foods and salads. Eat bread with fatty spreads such as avocado, peanut butter and olive or canola oil margarines. Try to eat more 'good fats' from nuts / olive oil as opposed to saturated fat from butter. Dry fruits are a great source of energy. Small size cashew nuts, almond and raisins have bundle of energy. From the milk Group, consume more milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, ice cream. From the grain group, consume more cereals, breads, rolls, pasta, muffins, pancakes, rice.

Eat more protein.

Protein is essential to the body, for repair, to enable the immune system to function and for recovery from illness. If you are recovering from illness, it is important to include adequate protein in your diet. Good vegetarian sources of protein include: cereals, nuts & seeds, Soya products (Soya milk, tofu etc) and pulses. Milk, yoghurt, cheese, and eggs are also excellent protein sources. Try to include a protein source at each meal.

Avoid Caffeine and Nicotine.

Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants that increase metabolism. Try to minimize them, since this helps your body to retain maximum nutritional value from what you eat.

Eat Late

Having snacks at bedtime may help to gain weight, as long as it does not interfere with sleep. This allows your body to 'retain' those calories rather than burning them away.

Exercise - more weight training, less aerobic exercise.

Lifting weights, under supervision, is an excellent way to gain muscle mass

without burning excess calories. Cut down on cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise and focus on high intensity weight training. Ideally 2-3 sets of 6-8 repetitions results in hypertrophy (increased muscle mass).

Importance of sleep.

Sleep is perhaps the most important component of weight gain. 6-8 hours of sleep is important everyday to gain weight and improve fitness. Less sleep will result in fatigue, and muscle wastage. During sleep, the body recuperates and regenerates. This means that all the food eaten during the day is assimilated and then distributed amongst the various tissues of the body. New cells are generated, and old cells are destroyed. When the body has the right combination of high intensity exercise, good nutrition and sufficient water intake, the muscles become fuller, larger and more well defined. This is the dream of anyone looking to gain weight.

In summary, good nutrition, rest, relaxation and regular exercise help in increasing body mass. Good luck !

Nitin Chhoda is a professional fitness consultant with an MS in Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention and a BS in Physical Therapy. Professionaly certified by the National Association of Sports Medicine as a Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES), Nitin has over 8 years of experience training the general population, hospital patients and athletes. He provides online personal training to clients all across the world through his website http://www.phonefitnesstrainer.com.

He also provides free training routines, diet plans, grocery lists and fitness books for women on his website http://www.toningforwomen.com

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