Last week we discussed the importance of muscle in the role of metabolism and weight management. Let's look at how we go about building muscle.

Let's give ourselves four weeks to implement muscle gain. With that goal in mind, you have to ignore the scale for now.

Perform a push-up, either traditional or modified with the knees on the ground. Are you able to perform one fully to the ground without feeling stress in the upper shoulders or lower back? If the answer is yes, then time yourself for a minute and perform as many as you can without strain in the areas mentioned above. If the answer is no, slowly lower yourself as much as you can before the strain kicks in. This is now your official push-up; do as many of these as you can within a minute.

Throughout the week, fit in these push-ups when you can, in one-minute increments. It is more important to achieve quality of a push-up over quantity. Spread your minutes throughout the day.

By the end of the four weeks, you should see results corresponding to how many minutes you were able to put in per day. Repeating this simple exercise consistently is enough to promote muscle growth and nudge you toward raising your metabolism enough to become a calorie-burning machine!

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.