1- STOP being obsessed with crunches

Your abs are not made to flex which is what they do when you do crunches, so basically they are useless. Your abs are made to stabilize your entire body while walking, running, sitting down, and therefore they should be trained as such. Even when you do lunges (which are great lower body exercises) your abs are working to stabilize you. For example if you put your hands over your head while doing lunges you would realize that you could lunge even better. What does this tell us? It tells us that during all these standing types of movements, pushup positions or similar movements, your abs are definitely working the entire time to make sure that your body is stabilized in the specific position. Therefore these are the main exercises you should be doing but not the basic crunch.

2 - Work on the principle of muscle overload

What do I mean by that? I mean that if you are lifting weights or doing body weight exercises and you feel like you can do 25-35 raps at once with the same weight then your muscles are not working hard enough. You should be definitely struggling a little bit with your weight training at the end of each set. With another words, add some more weight. If you are used to hold 5 pound (2.2 kg) dumbbells every time you are doing presses and you can do 20 or 30 raps without breaking a sweat, then you would never be able to build lean muscles. What you need to do is to consistently and constantly add weight to your routine. For example if you are doing pushups and they get too easy, then you have to make sure that you make it harder on yourself. One method of making it harder while doing pushups is to put your feet on a bench; this would make the pushups definitely more challenging. You should never let your routine get too easy, but if it does, then you have to make it more difficult right away.

3- Cardio training needs to be challenging as well

Interval training is one way to do your cardio more challenging. I am sure that everyone has seen people in the gym walking on the treadmill with 3 miles per hour or so and at the same time watching a show on the TV. This is a perfect example of what you should not be doing if you want to experience any positive changes. You need to do interval training where you vary the challenge of your cardiovascular routine. Running intense for 2 minutes, walking for 1 minute and going back and forth is a great way to increase your heart pulse and sweat a lot.

4- Your diet is really where the abs are made

You MUST watch your diet; you MUST watch what you eat. I am not a big fan of counting calories although I tried a few times in the past and trust me, it did not work out very well. My tip to you is to count ingredients. Look at the ingredients on the food label, it can be even better if the food does not have any label (like fresh fruits and vegetables), then you know for sure that what you eat is healthy and you should not worry about any calories or fats. If it is a boxed food maybe you are in a bit of trouble because the food is usually processed with a lot of junk in there. Try to eat food with as fewer ingredients as possible.

5- Get a support community

My fifth tip to you is to get a support community. If you feel like it is very hard to do all this by yourself, you should consider joining a team, a class, a blog, a forum online, or simply find a workout partner. The most important is that you find a positive person with the same or similar interest. Trust me, you can go far if you have somebody next to you who would encourage you and cheer you every time you try to give up.

Now what you need to do is to take these 5 essential tips and implement them in order to start seeing results and enjoying your flat stomach.