Rick's wife, Gail Kattouf, BSN, MA, has joined TEAMKATTOUF, INC.  She is a former D-I distance runner who now races multi-sport.  Her education includes a bachelor's and master's degree in health and exercise science from Furman University, as well as a bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of South Carolina.  While in graduate school at Furman, she was the assistant coach in cross-country and track and field.  In addition, she was a graduate assistant in the Health and Exercise Science Department.  After graduating, she took a position in a  hospital based wellness facility where she designed programs and taught classes.  From their she pursued a nursing degree and has since focused her nursing career in cardiac medicine and clinical trials.  She remains employed as a RN in an intensive care unit.  For a list of her athletic accomplishments, checkout www.teamkattouf.com.

Over the past 17 years, I have been extremely fortunate to have coached individuals in 25 states. During this time, a common question always seems to arise during coaching and lecturing; "Rick, what is the best exercise to get my abs to show?" Common answers have been...abs crunches, stability ball abs crunches, hanging leg raises, abdominal weight machine, etc. Well, instead of me just giving you one answer, I will give you the top 3 exercises that will allow one to have lean, sculpted abdominal muscles:

1.       Nutrition

2.       Nutrition

3.       Nutrition

Yes, that is correct, proper nutrition is the gateway to a lean midsection. Athletes can do abs exercises until they are blue in the face, but, until one begins to exercise clean nutrition, lean abdominals will not become a reality. Now, I do not want to give a mixed message here. Weight training to facilitate lean muscle growth combined with cardiovascular exercise is a critical component when combined with proper nutrition. The point is that if one wants lean abs and chooses to exercise only and not make nutrition the number one focus, this would be equivalent to washing your feet with your socks on.

In order to achieve that washboard look, there are three main nutrition principles one must follow:

1.       Maintain a high frequency of eating (5-7 times per day)

2.       Maintain the proper daily calorie intake

3.       Maintain a balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat

 Of these three nutrition principles, I would have to place eating frequency at the top of the list. When we eat, it takes 'work' to digest the foods we consumed. This 'work' is the body burning calories, particularly body fat which must be reduced for abdominal muscles to show. Each time we ingest food, thermogenesis occurs. Thermogenesis is the body producing heat and increasing its metabolic rate higher than normal. So, just imagine, the more times you eat in a day, the more often you are raising your metabolism. The higher our metabolism, the more calories we will be able to burn; this is the Thermic effect of food. We will burn an additional 10% of our total daily calories through digestion. For example, if you consume 2,500 calories on a given day, you will burn an additional 250 calories. Eat more to lose body fat, sweet!

 In my book, Forever Fit, I refer to this as 'Stoking the Fire.' In order to stoke the fire within the human body, we must eat, and eat frequently. The key to a high eating frequency is to be sure the 'feedings' are small in terms of total volume/calories. The smaller the meals/snacks, the more efficient our body can process the food and raise the metabolic rate. Think about it like this...if you throw a high volume of food in your garbage disposal all at one time, what happens? Well, the disposal at first sounds as if is a little slow trying to churn up all of the contents. Now, notice the difference when only a small amount of garbage is placed in the disposal. It never seems to let up in terms of speed or efficiency; it churns up the garbage and is ready for more. This is just like our digestive system.

Lean abs is not only about aesthetics. Research shows that abdominal fat can increase our risk of heart disease. If your eating frequency is high, keep up the good work. If not, no worries; begin to increase your eating frequency today, stoke your fire, increase your metabolism and you will be on your way to washboard abs!

-Dr. Rick Kattouf II