1. Eliminate as much sugar as possible from your food and drinks. Sugar comes in many forms so read the labels of everything you consume. Watch out for key sugar cronies such as: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup solids, cane juice, sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose, sorbitol, dextrose, honey, and maltose, just to name a few. In fact, it seems just about any ingredient ending in "-ose," "-tol" or "syrup" is sugar in disguise. so beware.

2. Watch out for foods with sugar and salt in the first 6 ingredients of a food label, and reduce or eliminate those foods from your diet.

3. Eat more natural foods. Basically, avoid eating food in a box, bag, or can. These foods are usually full of saturated fats, estrogen enhancing chemicals, which enhance belly fat, and high in salt that dehydrate the body, causing water retention and bloating. The less ingredients on the label (or lack of a label) the better.

4. Eat organic fruits, veggies, dairy, wild caught fish, and free range lean meats. There was a time when organic foods were far more expensive than the pesticide laden, hormone induced foods sold for far less. However, recently, prices for natural, organic foods have become more affordable. Going organic may cost you a dollar or two more than its non-organic counterpart. However, the price you pay from eating unhealthy food, over time, outweighs the cost of any organic food. Yet, I noticed that when you eliminate buying the groceries that work against your tummy-flattening mission (i.e. junk food, soft drinks, sugary juices, and processed foods, which do not fill you up, leave you hungry, or you overeat in order to feel full), you tend to have a lot more money to purchase nutrient dense organic whole food.

5. During the day, eat mostly fresh, organic fruits and veggies. Not only do these foods have far less calories than processed food, but these foods also give you energy to carry on throughout your day, give you the vitamins and minerals your body needs to function at its best, speed up your metabolism, while burning more calories, and reduce the signs of aging, just to name a few of the benefits.

6. Reduce stress. It’s true that stress increases the production of the stress hormone, cortisol, which tends to spend its lovely days residing in your belly area. take the time to relax, rejuvenate, and just breathe. Spend more time with people who don’t stress you out. Get a massage at least once a month. However, I truly suggest twice. Take a walk, Take a mini-vacation, but leave your crackberry, iPhone, and laptop behind. Find a quiet spot, alone, and have some "me" time and meditate/sit in silence. If the word meditate sounds hokey to you, then find a quiet spot, and "do nothing!" Don’t talk, don’t think, just don’t! Relax and enjoy the silence.

7. Exercise intensely at least 3-4 times a week for at least 20-30 minutes. No one is saying go out and train for the Olympics. However, find exercises that challenge you, get your heart rate up, and includes some form of resistance training. Cardio is good for the heart; however, resistance training builds the lean muscles you need to burn fat and help speed up your metabolism need to burn more fat. In a nutshell, you can’t have one without the other. Be sure to mix it up though. 2-3 days of resistance training, and 2-3 days of cardio interval training, will definitely help flatten your tummy. Examples of tummy-flattening activities are: sprinting, hill sprinting, interval sprints on the treadmill, hiking, jumping rope, weight training, kettlebell training, playing various sports, bodyweight training (calisthenics and plyometrics), cycling, martial arts, skipping, hula hooping, and the list goes on.

8. Don’t drink your calories! Most sodas, juices, energy drinks, flavored coffees and teas, designer water, and alcoholic beverages are full of sugars and sugar alcohols that promote excess calories. In addition, they leave you feeling empty soon after consumption, which leaves you to finding more food or drinks to fill you up. Therefore, you consume an excess amount of calories in a short amount of time. thus, the belly fat dilemma continues.

9. Eat more, but eat less. What? Confused? Well, this is what I mean. If you are starving yourself all day, because you are afraid that eating too often will make you fat, yet you eat one big meal a day, that’s not going to work. You are making your body think you are starving. (well, in a sense, you are). So, in order to protect you, your body stores more body fat, so your vital organs are protected, and you don’t wither away. If you are feeling hungry, EAT! However, start by eating mostly fiberous veggies and fruit, and drink plenty of water. On the other hand, I am going to say something that will tick a lot fo so-called experts, and misinformed trainers off. The "Eat 6 Meals A Day" plan does not work for everyone. If you are eating 6 meals a day, because you read it somewhere or heard it on TV, yet you are not active….you are never going to lose any fat! Yeah, I said it! Look, if you are taking in all of these calorie (good or bad) and are not doing any regular, intense activity to utilize those calories, your body will store it as fat. The key here, is to treat food for what it really is….fuel! You wouldn’t continue putting oil in a car everyday that was already filled with oil. If so, your car would not function well, and eventually, your engine would shut down. Your body is not any different. Use your fuel, then add more when your body (not your brain or your emotions) signal you need more. In others words, "Move More/Eat Less." Less, in this case means quantity, not quality.

10. Eat fat to lose fat. kick all of that "low fat" nonsense to the curb. You body, especially your cells and muscles, need fat in order to function properly. Heck, even the brain is mostly fat. Plus, most "low fat" processed foods, pay you back by giving you even more sugar, and chemical preservatives, which promote even more calorie consumption. Be sure to get more foods rich in Omega 3 and 6 in your diet, in order to help reduce fat, heart disease, cholesterol, increase energy, and even enhance sexual activity. Raw, unprocessed nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, pistachios, and seeds should be included in your daily diet. Also, various oils such as extra virgin olive oil, flax seed oil, and fish oils. Just be sure to consume your fats with veggies and lean proteins, and not grains, in order to keep the calories under control. Also, make sure to buy your oils in glass bottles, in order to avoid contaminating your oils, as they would if purchased in plastic bottles. Over time, the chemicals used to make plastic react negatively with the oils and contaminate them. when consumed, this chemicals have an estrogenic effect on your body, and aids in promoting fat, especially in the stomach area. These 10 tips just scratch the surface on ways to get a flatter stomach. However, I definitely want you to see it takes more than a simple exercise such as sit ups, crunches, or even running on a treadmill, to reduce unwanted fat. I suggest focusing on a couple of these tips for a couple of weeks, in order to make them a "good" habit, and them move on to a new tip. Remember, this is a lifestyle, and does not happen overnight.

I wish you the best, and would love to hear about your progress. Have a great week.