besides doing crunches/situps and jogging

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what else can i do to flatten my belly?

drink lots of water, eat healthy, take vitamins, dont do the same sit ups do different ones, and take a day for the muscle to relax, and make sure to do at least 20mins of cardio a day. also this is a big thing, make sure to suck in your stomach 24-7, builds the muscle faster, and tightens your stomach.

I can't stand crunchies and think they are terrible on the back and stress level in general.

Double leg lifts work the stomach.
Hanging upside down and doing full situps work the stomach.
Swimming.
One of my excersise tapes has a low impact set using a ball squeezed beneath the knees with option to add crunchie. It works the abs without one though.

Then there is those chairs as shown on tv.
pushups work the abs in that to maintain proper posture you have to tighten your stomach harness.

Flat stomachs are made in the kitchen, not the gym...

There's no such thing as spot reduction if you're trying to lose fat, you can't just exercise one body part to lose the fat covering it. Many people have beautiful abdominal muscles from the work they've put into developing them, trouble is you can't see them through the fat that covers them.
Do loads of different cardio if you can stand to, cycling is non weight bearing and adds variety to your running which many people find boring (not me, I love running and miss doing my marathons!).
Rowing machines are fantastic cardio workouts too.
One of the best ways to reduce fat is also to do some weight lifting. The more muscle you have the more fuel your body needs and as long as you eat regularly and don't eat too much your body can use it's fat storage as fuel to help build muscle. You won't get big muscles unless you eat tons of extra food, you can instead just start toning yourself up as you lose fat and replace it with a little muscle.
To keep your metabolism fired up it's best to eat little and often. Ditch the 3 meals a day and eat 6 smaller meals throughout the day. You'll never be full but you'll also never be hungry, and this should also help limit unhealthy snacking. Snacking can be good if you snack on the right things so if you still feel peckish lose the junk food out of the house and instead buy healthier alternatives.
Once a week or so treat yourself to something you want, it will stop you going mad.
Finally, love yourself for who you are, not just for who/what you want to be.


On a side note you may find it easier to join some sort of club and go with a friend. Gyms can be intimidating to some people, and boring as hell to many others. Personally, I go kickboxing regularly and it's an awesome workout. Starting things fresh you may think you will be useless and again may feel intimidated by others who are ahead of you but remember, everyone has to start somewhere and nobody is a world champion when they are just starting out.
If you find that you're weak willed (which i'm not accusing you of) it's easier if you train with a friend as you keep eachother going.

Hope this helps

p.s. The poster above me is spot on, abs are made in the kitchen and not the gym

Use weigths when doing sit-ups, and use 10 to 30 repetitions and 3 sets. Eat more protein, but less carbohydrates. Have a cardio workout twice a week with low intensity. In the cardio workouts, walk fast for an hour, instead of running. If you run, you'll burn muscle mass, but if you walk for an hour, you'll mostly burn fat.

ahemm... the bit about walking and running is highly questionable.
actually, the best kick you can give your metabolism is a high intensity workout. think hiit (high intensity interval training) or even tabata intervals. applied to running, this means alternate fast running with easy jogging. in the case of tabata, youll sprint all out for 20 seconds, rest (read: just idly walk) for ten seconds and repeat that eight times. youll have done four minutes of workout. the thing you want to wipe off your face? that would be the floor.

for hiit and more intense stuff, you need some good base conditioning which is a skill that needs training. dont just start running fast for an hour or you will rather give your body a little push towards a catabolic state, which you dont want. there re lenty of plans out there that are for especially that: training the skill of endurance. they start slow and become more intense slowly.
dont really count on the cardio/endurance workout per se to burn fat away... its ridiculously low amounts youll burn in the workout itself. (your body has several modes of getting its energy - only one consumes fat and it will always run through the first, faster, two before tackling your body fat resources)

be prepared, though, there is no such thing as location-specific fat loss.

what you can do to increase the energy level your body needs in an idle state is gaining muscle tone. more muscle needs more enegry - its quite that simple. however, focussing extensively on rather low-intensity, but lengthy endurance workouts is counterproductive to this goal: your body will try to reduce its idle energy cost by reducing muscle mass. hence, its not as easy as saying "only walk, never run" or "do this exercise with these weights and this and that amount of repetitions" but its a highly individual matter, depending of your state of physical training, how your body ticks and successfully pulling off the balance between various goals (actually, building some base muscle tone plus practising endurance is pretty taxing - add one or two days rest per week (which youll need, too) and youll see that its pretty packed and hard to pull off without overdoing it.

in terms of useful exercises for the abdominal region:
proper situps are a quite advanced exercise that is easy to butcher - similar to squats: squats are a great exercise for the whole posterior chain, but its easy to do them wrong and do you more harm than anything else. for beginning, leg raises or similar exercises may be better to get the muscle control and strength youll need for proper situps. attempting weighted situps just asks for doing them wrong... actually, if you have a weak midsection, the stabilizing your core muscles do while doing, for example, pushups might be enough of a challenge for now. also, there are physical conditions like an extreme hollow back, that can interfere with doing certain abdominal exercises correctly, namely situps.
also, not only the rectus abdominis (the classic six-pack) is what abdominals are made of. there are the obliques that run on either side between the upper crest of your pelvis and your ribcage (for bending sideways or twisting your torso against your hips) - giving them some training can be very effective, too, and shape a nice waist.

I disagree. The abdominal muscles are muscles, just as any other muscle group, and will respond the same way when subjected to weight training. If weights are used, the muscles will get larger, which is the opposite of what is desired here. Also, unless the bodyfat percentage is relatively low, then whatever exercises are done will be useless, as the muscles will be hidden under a layer of fat. While adding weights to an ab routine is great for someone far along in their training, it's wasted on a beginner, and may be counterproductive.

Best bet:

1. Healthy diet, of moderate portions.
2. Cardio exercise (walking at a brisk pace, jogging, whatever. You need to burn fat from your entire body, as many posters have said)
3. Resistance training (weights, etc.) is useful, but not too heavy! Bodyweight exercises for the abs should be sufficient (crunches, leg raises, "the plank" (in honor of the website creator! Actually it's a real exercise movement for developing ab strength---look it up)

I'm not a gym teacher or anything, but I play competitive sports (soccer, distance and mountain biking) and have many athletic friends. I used to do powerlifting until I tore a muscle in my arm, so I do have some experience...

Ditch the 3 meals a day and eat 6 smaller meals throughout the day.

This could be a problem. I work 8am-5pm with a break at 11.30am - 1pm. Maybe i can get lunch at the break, eat half of it, then eat the rest around 3 pm.

Just remember though to drink lots of water, and make sure to tighten your abs throughout the day as well, during the process of it all!

you know, feedback could be very much more precise if you wrote what your situation and your goals are.
obviously, it needs different plans if you have a quite normal tummy and want to reach a trim sixpack or if you want to lose some serious poundage, maybe even for health reasons.

ill post pics of my belly tomorrow to show how bad it is right now.

I disagree. Muscles don't always get larger if they get stronger. This is a similar belief expressed often by women who want to tone up but not get bulky manly muscle. This 'toning' that is talked about by use of high reps and low weights is a myth. Many studies have proven that's a muscle's tone is in direct relation to it's force production i.e. strength. By developing strength you increase the tone of the muscle. I agree that you want to avoid increasing size which is hypertrophy but you can do that and increase strength at the same time. To train strength and not cause hypertrophy you'd go for high intensity or heavier weight, 90% of one repetition maximum and in the 2-5 rep range. Also you won't get larger muscle if you aren't taking in excess calories which should be your aim if you wish to reduce your body fat.
But I do agree that abs can be trained with bodyweight exercises alone as long as they are of sufficient intensity. Cranking out 30 plus crunches won't do anything. The plank and it's advanced variations are a good choice.

Increasing ab and overall core strength whilst reducing overall body fat should be the key aim for someone wishing for a 'flatter stomach' IMHO.

whats the plank? is it where you sit on the edge of a bench and pull your knee towards your belly?

No, if you take a position facing the floor supported on your elbows and the balls of your feet only with your body as straight and horizontal as you can get it, that would be the plank. Your body in this case is the plank and your core musculature has to work hard to support it.

To Aries: Good points, thanks for clarifying. My main point was that heavy weighted ab exercises won't make his stomach smaller, and I do believe that if weights are used, they could result in bigger muscles. I'm not against resistance training for abdominal development, I just think weights are unnecessary for all but the most athletic. A beginner has no business adding weight to an ab routine. And ab exercises alone won't do anything without the added elements of proper diet and cardio. If weight training must be done to reduce bodyfat, work the legs (specifically the quadraceps). These are the largest muscles in the body, and require the most energy to work. Bodyfat reduction is accomplished only be expending more calories than consumed. Leg exercises require more energy, so would be more efficient in overall bodyfat reduction.

To Aaronrey: The plank is done like this:

1. Get in a standard push-up position.
2. Instead of your hands supporting your upper body weight, use your forearms (from the elbow to a closed fist) Your back should basically be parallel to your forearms.
3. Hold it for 10-15 seconds. It sounds ridiculously easy, but you'll be amazed at how you feel it in your midsection. There's variations that target your obliques (love handles) as well. You could probably find pictures on a fitness website, try AskMen.com, or just run a google search with the terms "plank" "abs" or "exercise".

Also, if you're adding abdominal exercises, make sure to work your lower back as well, or your posture will suffer due to unbalanced muscle development. A good exercise is called "The Superman". Basically, lie flat on your stomach, and raise your hands in front of you (like Superman flying) while raising your legs behind you. Do it 8-10 times. It's a bit awkward at first, but it's a good exercise. You'll feel it the next day for sure!

Good Luck