If you are one of the many people who think doing 100 abdominal exercises or 500 crunches a day will help you lose belly fat, then read on the find out the real secrets to a flat stomach. Although abdominal exercises help to tighten and tone the ab muscles, without losing excess body fat first, these toned muscles will forever be hidden behind belly fat.

You must rid the stomach fat first before you can see the results from your abdominal exercises. And to do this, you need to get out your running shoes and eat healthy. Just follow these steps in order to get a flat stomach and lose excess body fat.

Aerobics

Instead of spending day after day doing abdominal exercises, it’s time to add aerobics to your weekly exercise routine. So get out your running shoes and get moving. Aerobic exercises get your blood pumping, sending oxygen to your muscles in order to perform efficiently. Fat needs oxygen to burn, so in order to achieve maximum fat burn you need aerobic exercises. Aerobics are great for burning excess body fat and is just one step towards getting a flat stomach.

All aerobic exercises will help lose excess body fat, however some are better than others. For maximum fat burn, do aerobic exercises that use both the upper body and lower body like running, walking, jogging and cross country skiing. Your upper body muscles are smaller and require less oxygen. But the lower body muscles like the hips, glutes and quads are larger muscles. By using both the upper body and the larger lower body muscles you are getting more oxygen in your system. This really aids in the fat burning process. Your aerobic exercises should be a minimum of 30 minutes long 3 or 4 times a week. After a few weeks, increase the duration to 45 or 60 minutes and add 1 or 2 days of aerobics.

Strength Training

In addition to your aerobic workouts you need to strength train all of your major muscles. Strength training helps tone and build lean muscle mass through resistance. The higher the resistance the greater the challenge is to your muscles. Weight lifting is one of the most common methods of strength training but you can also do resistance band exercises, dumbbell exercises or even body weight exercises.

The reason that strength training helps you lose belly fat is that the muscles are more metabolically demanding. This means the more lean muscles you have the higher your metabolism, which in turn means the more fat and calories you burn during the day. Strength training increases your basal metabolic rate and is responsible for 60 to 70% of the total calories you burn in a day. You should include 2 to 3 days a week of strength training and work all the major muscles. Don’t forget to include your abdominal exercises as well. This way once your get rid of the belly fat you can show off your tight, tone stomach muscles.

Eat Healthy

Aerobic and strength training exercises alone will not give you a flat stomach. You must include healthy eating habits to really lose belly fat. After all, why waste time exercising if you are going to shove in a bunch of junk food high in fats and sugars. Getting the right foods in your daily meals is key to shed excess body fat. Your meals should include all the food groups and should be healthy selections.

You need vegetables and protein at each meal. Veggies help make you feel full and satisfied and can prevent the munchies. Protein is a great fat burning food as it takes more energy to digest. This means you are burning more calories to process the food. Include fruits and low fat or fat free dairy products. Include the healthy fats like Omega-3 fatty acids from foods like tuna and salmon. Minimize or eliminate the trans fats. For your breads, pastas and cereals choose whole grain selections. Whole grain offers lots of nutrients and dietary fiber. It is okay to treat yourself once in awhile to the "wrong" foods, but you should reduce the amount of really high sugar and high fatty foods like cakes, cookies and potato chips.

Get a Good Nights Sleep

You are probably asking "how can sleep help you lose belly fat?" Well your body needs to recoup from the previous day’s activities and sleep is when this happens. With proper sleep you will awaken refreshed and energized. This means you can exercise harder and more efficient. You are also sharper and more alert, meaning you can make better food choices.

Getting the proper sleep also helps regulate insulin levels which helps maintain blood glucose levels. Studies show that the lack of sleep can negatively impact your insulin production. Excess insulin in your system leads to increased fat production and unfortunately, this excess fat tends to settle in the stomach leading to belly fat. So be sure to get sleep and wake up well rested so that you can focus on burning fat and flattening your stomach.

Reduce Stress

Although you cannot reduce stress 100% you want to minimize the amount of stress in your life. When a person is stressed the body releases cortisol which is known as the stress hormone. When cortisol is released this causes increased appetite and fat production. And again, this excess fat generally ends up as belly fat. Additionally, stress is one of the major emotions that cause people to overeat or eat the wrong foods. Emotional eating often keeps people from losing weight as they revert to food when feeling a certain emotion.

Experts state that exercise is one of the best ways to relieve stress. So by exercising you are not only burning fat and calories, you are reducing your stress. Other ways to reduce stress include relaxation therapy, reading a good book or doing breathing exercises. Try doing simple breathing exercises 3 times a day for about 5 minutes. The slow deep breaths help to relax the body and clear your mind. It also oxygenates your body and fat needs oxygen to burn. So you are not only relieving stress you are helping to lose belly fat.