Your body is not much different from your car. It requires regular maintenance and attention to keep it running optimally and dependably.

The engine of a vehicle, as you know, is what makes the car run. Fuel is poured into the tank, and the engine ignites it in measured spurts to make it run. Depending on the size of the engine, those measured spurts are fairly large gulps or small conservative sips resulting in a high-mpg or low-mpg vehicle.

In human terms, the engine is your skeletal muscle. Fuel (calories) is poured into the tank, and your muscle either uses it or leaves it in one of the fuel storage tanks of the body, the main one being fat.

Depending on the amount of muscle mass within your body, you are either a low-mpg vehicle or a high-mpg vehicle. More familiarly, you have either a low metabolism or a high metabolism, and as we know, the holy grail of weight management is a high metabolism, in which muscles work optimally to burn calories.

Check back next week for some safe and effective ways to build up the muscle within you.

NOTE: This month's tips are geared toward a sedentary individual who has already introduced low- to moderate-intensity walks around the park or on a treadmill to his or her lifestyle, with a frequency of three to seven times a week over the past three months.