Q: I am a vegetarian but also have been diagnoised with High Cholestrol. I would like to build muscle and also gain some weight as my height is 6ft and weight 68Kg. Could you please help, with information on what protein etc I need to take.

A: Gaining muscle is not difficult -- it simply requires heavy whole-body weight training and eating enough calories to slowly gain weight (the slower the better -- 1 kg per month is a good pace). Obviously, you should eat healthy nutritious whole foods as much as possible as described in my Nutrition article.

As a vegetarian, good calorie-dense choices include old-fashioned oats, brown rice, sweet potatoes, fruits, all sorts of dry-roasted or raw nuts or natural nut butter, and olive and other plant-based oils. The biggest challenge will be not so much getting enough calories (that's just a matter of eating calorie-dense foods and increasing portion sizes till you start gaining weight) but getting enough protein. You should shoot for at least 2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight daily -- in your case that would be 136 grams of protein daily, which is quite a bit. The best vegetarian source of protein are various beans, lentils, and soy products. Nuts also contain a lot of protein, but they wrap that protein in a whole lot of fat which makes it difficult to get much protein from nuts alone (you'd have to eat so much of them that you will gain a lot of weight quickly -- which means lots of new fat). Most green veggies have 30-50% of their calories come from protein, but because they are so light in calories it would be difficult to eat enough of them to get a lot of protein from them. In addition you could consider supplementing with protein powder -- soy protein powder is 100% vegetarian and does not have any cholesterol. Whey protein powder is derived from dairy and can have some cholesterol depending on brand and serving size -- I am not sure whether that would be acceptable for you.

So in the end your best source of protein are beans, soy, and lentils and I would recommend including generous helping of some sort of them in most meals. If you eat 5 meals a day (5 should be considered the minimal number of meals to keep your metabolism high throughout the day) and 4 of them have 20 grams of protein come from beans or lentils, then the rest of your diet -- between whole grains, vegetables, and nuts -- will prolly add up to the other 60 or so grams of protein to combine for that minimum goal of 140 grams of protein daily. If that sounds like too much beans for you, consider tofu, soy or possibly whey protein powder as I mentioned before (you may want to consult with your doctor or nutritionist regarding cholesterol content of whey powder). Good luck!