Getting a flat midsection really boils down to two things: 1) Getting rid of the fatty layer that is covering your abdominal muscles; and 2) Tightening and toning your abdominal muscles.

The following 7 Fat Loss Exercises and Tips are your Fast-Track ticket to getting a flat, attractive midsection this summer.

Tight Abs Tip #1: Perform challenging strength training abdominal exercises at least three times each week. Your abs are like any other muscle in your body—they need to be consistently challenged in order to become stronger and tighter.

Tight Abs Tip #2: Stop eating junk. Processed foods, refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup do NOT belong in your diet if, especially if you want tight abs. Cutting these items from your diet will allow your body to maintain stable blood sugar levels, alleviating your body’s need to store excess sugar away in fat cells.

The fat stores created by excess sugar intake most often accumulate around your waist, covering up your abdominal muscles. Cut these items from your diet and replace them with real whole foods such as lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and fruits.

Tight Abs Tip #3: Stop doing long and slow cardio workouts. Instead, use HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) for your cardio workouts. HIIT training uses intense bursts of cardio peppered throughout your workout. This is a sure-fire way to rev up your metabolism and to get your fat stores to shrink.

Tight Abs Tip #4: Use resistance with your abdominal exercises. Crunches are great, but your body quickly becomes accustomed to the motion, rendering it less effective. Hold a medicine ball or dumbbell at your chest as you perform your crunches—this will force your abs to work harder, and will achieve better results.

Tight Abs Tip #5: Don’t be fooled. The market is flooded with ‘lose weight’ products and products that claim to flatten your stomach. Never waste your time or money on:

1. So-called packaged health food that comes with weight loss claims. If it’s processed in a package with a bunch of chemical additives then it will not help you achieve flat abs.
2. Abdominal exercise gimmicks as sold on late night infomercials – all you really need is your own body weight, an exercise ball and dumbbells or a medicine ball.
3. So-called weight loss supplements. The magic pill for flat abs doesn’t exist, so you’d be wasting your health and money on a bogus product.

Tight Abs Tip #6: Target your lower abs. It’s easy to neglect the lower abs, but they are an important part of the equation. Incorporate the V-Up into your exercise routine:

Tight Abs Tips #7: Challenge your core often. Don’t limit your abdominal exercise to the gym, incorporate core strengthening during daily life and throughout each workout. A strong core is the foundation for flat, tight abs.

There you have it! Seven tips that, when diligently applied, will help you shed the fat and tighten your abs.

But, keep in mind that your results will be seriously hindered if you do the same exercise routine over and over. Your abs need a progressive challenge in order to transform. This means new exercises, different resistance and increased challenge.

You want to be slimmer and to tone your body, but your weight won’t budge.

Read the following 7 Weight Loss Blockers to discover what is standing in your way and how to quickly and easily begin your weight loss journey.

Blocker #1: Your Mind

Your mind is your number one ally when it comes to achieving your goals. However, until your mind has been programmed for success, it will do more to derail your efforts than to help you.

• Take a few moments each day to visualize yourself at your ideal weight. Imagine how it feels to look the way you’ve always wanted.
• Protect your mind from any negative self talk. If a negative thought comes to mind, immediately reject it.
• You want to be thin and fit, and yet you think of yourself as out-of-shape and fat. Re-program your mind to think of yourself as fit and attractive, and you will be well on your way toward achieving your goal.
• Give up the belief that you can’t achieve the body you’ve always dreamed of. See it first in your mind, and then in the mirror.

Blocker #2: Your Fear

Change makes most of us nervous – even if it is a change in the right direction. You may not be consciously aware of the fear you have of getting into shape. Until you conquer this fear, your weight loss efforts will be blocked by self sabotage.

Professional speaker and author, Anthony Robbins, has outlined three specific beliefs that you must have in order to conquer your fear and instantly create a lasting change.

• Believe that something MUST change. You can’t be wishy-washy about it. You can’t be considering it. You can’t even be pretty sure about it. You’ve got to be rock solid.
• Believe that YOU must change it. You can’t pass the buck of responsibility and expect to lose weight. It’s on your shoulders. Other people will prove to be great assets in your journey, but in the end you are the one who is going to make it happen. You have to want this weight loss enough to make it your personal mission.
• Believe you CAN change it. You may have failed in the past, but that doesn’t matter. When you put your mind to it, you’re able to do amazing things. Do you believe that you are capable of losing weight? Once you own the belief that you can, you’ll be unstoppable.

Blocker #3: Your Excuses

Your excuses for being out-of-shape are getting old. An excuse takes less immediate effort than an action, but in the long run the action taker always has the advantage. Don’t allow excuses to ruin your life any longer.

• Don’t skip out on your responsibilities with excuses, instead expect more from yourself.
• Focus on the big reason why you are losing the weight. Make a list of the benefits you’ll enjoy once you achieve your goal, and read them first thing each morning.
• Remember that you can only have two things in life: excuses or results. Which do you want?

Blocker #4: Your Commitment

How many times have you tried to lose weight, only to give up a week or two later? We live in a commitment-phobic world, so it’s no wonder that you routinely abandon your goals. If you truly want to lose weight then your commitment to the process is a must.

• The margin between success and failure is bridged by your commitment. Don’t give up until your goal has been achieved.
• Treat exercise with the same importance as a work meeting, and you’ll never skip it at the last minute. Find three available 60-minute time slots in your schedule and mark them (in pen) on your calendar. Now stick to your schedule.
• If you don’t give up, then you’ll never fail.

Blocker #5: Your Diet

If you consistently eat the wrong food, then you’re weight loss efforts will all be in vain. To put it bluntly, you need to stop eating junk. Processed foods, refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup do not belong in your diet if you want to be in great shape. Cut these items out of your diet and replace them with real whole foods like lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and fruits.

• Don’t eat processed foods. Even though processed foods are accepted by our society, they contain tons of chemicals and empty calories that will make you sick and fat.
• Fat contains twice the caloric density of protein and carbohydrates, so make sure to limit the amount that you consume. Eat lots of lean proteins and wholesome carbohydrates from plants and whole grains.
• Vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts and seeds are filled with fiber and antioxidants which are vital for healthy weight loss. Snack on these instead of packaged treats.

Blocker #6: Your Patience

It takes time to transform your body from fat to fit, even though you want it to happen overnight. Remind yourself that it took time to put the weight on, so it will take time to take the weight off. When you find your patience wavering, or when you encounter a frustrating plateau, do the following:

• Review your goal. Is it specific and measurable? Is it small and attainable, rather than monumental? Focus on your goal when the going gets tough.
• Make each workout a new experience. Challenge your body with different resistance, new exercises and a varied pace.
• Remember that anyone can have one great workout, but that won’t get you the body you want. The only way to achieve your goal is by consistently exercising and eating right, plain and simple.

Blocker #7: Your Support

People who exercise alone are less challenged, less accountable and are more likely to fail. It makes sense. Who would rush to the gym if no one is was waiting for them? Who would push themselves if no one was paying attention? Exercising alone is a recipe for disaster.

• Find a workout partner who is in better shape than you, or better yet, work with me, your local fitness expert, to guarantee your results.
• I am passionate about seeing you achieve results – don’t waste your time, energy and effort on mistakes.
• When you start a program with me, you suddenly have the upper hand on weight loss. I’ll be in your corner, coaching you each step of the way, keeping you accountable to workouts and giving you that dose of encouragement when you need it most.

Get serious about your results and begin the last weight loss program that you’ll ever do with the Express Fat Loss System.

Click Here and Start the Express Fat Loss System right now

Whether you can’t wait to bare it all on the beach, or if you’re still working toward a weight loss goal, exercise is the key to looking and feeling great in summer months.

But why else should you exercise? Here are the top 7 reasons to exercise this summer:

Reason #1: To Melt Fat Away

The most coveted side effect of exercise is, of course, fat burn. The combination of a challenging exercise routine and a balanced meal plan is the best known way to lose fat. Here’s what losing fat feels like:

• Your pants become loose
• People around you begin to say that you look great
• A glance at yourself in the mirror makes you smile
• Your energy levels soar
• You feel amazing

Reason #2: To Alleviate Pain

Regular exercise is a great way to alleviate chronic muscle and joint pain. Persistent back pain can be lessened by strengthening your core, and you’ll protect yourself against injury. It amazes people when the chronic pain that they’ve lived with for years begins to fade after starting a regular exercise program.

Reason #3: To Increase Lean Tissue

More muscle is good for many reasons. You see, muscle requires many more calories each day than fatty tissue. In fact, one pound of muscle burns 30-50 calories each day at rest – compared to a measly 9 calories per pound of fat.

When you exercise your body composition will change to contain more lean tissue, thus resulting in extra calories burned while you sleep. What could be better than that?

Reason #4: To Stay Young

Tim D. Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in London, led a study on the effects of exercise on aging. The results were astounding. They found that exercise appears to slow the shriveling of the protective tips on bundles of genes inside cells (called telomeres), which means a slowing of the aging process.

“These data suggest that the act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process,” said Spector.

Here’s the study in a nutshell:

• Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes and every time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter.

• Once a telomere gets too short, that cell can no longer divide.

• Aging occurs as more and more cells reach the end of their telomeres and die. This results in weakened muscles, skin wrinkles, loss of eyesight and hearing, organ failure and slowed metal functioning.

• The study analyzed the telomeres from the white bloods cells of twins over a 10-year period. Telomere length was used as a marker for the rate of biological aging.

• It was found that the length of telomeres was directly related to that twin’s activity level. “There was a gradient,” Spector said. “As the amount of exercise increased, the telomere length increased.”

• People who did 100 minutes of weekly exercise had telomeres that looked like those from someone about 5-6 years younger than those who did 16 minutes of exercise each week.

• People who did 3 hours of vigorous exercise each week had telomeres that looked like those from someone about 9 years younger.

Reason #5: To Prevent or Control Type 2 Diabetes

Regular exercise helps to stabilize blood sugar levels. This is something that people with type 2 diabetes, or at risk for type 2 diabete, gain substantial benefits from.

Exercise improves the body’s use of insulin, and the related weight loss improves insulin sensitivity. Of course patients with type 2 diabetes need to get guidelines from their doctor before starting an exercise program.

Reason #6: To Lower Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Levels

Exercise has shown to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels for these two reasons:

• Weak Heart Muscles pump little blood with lots of effort. By exercising you strengthen your heart muscles and train them to pump more blood with less effort. The stronger your heart is the less pressure will be exerted on your arteries.

• Exercise Increases HDL levels in some people – this means a decrease in your risk for heart disease. Other heart disease risk factors such as weight, diabetes and high blood pressure all show improvement with regular exercise.

Reason #7: To Feel Great

The first thing that clients tell me after starting an exercise program is how much better they feel.

Most didn’t even realize how bad they felt. It is easy to get used to feeling sluggish, achy and unmotivated.

Exercise boosts your energy levels and makes you feel amazing.

The quickest, easiest way to guarantee that you’ll meet your fitness and weight loss goals is to work one-on-one with a qualified fitness professional. You’ll be held accountable with your workouts and you’ll be instructed properly and shown techniques and strategies that will expedite your results.

What are you waiting for? Lace up your shoes and get moving!

You know why? It’s because you can’t do any spot reduction. It’s that simple. Sure when you perform your crunches you will strengthen your abdominal muscles, but you’ll still have that layer of fat on top of your abs. They may be strong and firm, but you won’t be able to see them under the belly fat!  So what is the best way to burn your belly fat and show off those abs?

If you train your big muscle groups like your chest, back and legs you will burn more calories during your workout and therefore burn more fat. This is the best way to burn those calories – focus on the big muscle groups. I feel so sad when I see someone who’s overweight and they’re doing something like a triceps kick back or biceps curl for half of their workout.  If they could see how many calories they can burn with my approach with big muscles by comparison, they’d be watching their melt away.

If you really want to work your biceps, but you also want to burn fat, try adding a squat to your movement. Do a squat with your dumbbells at your side and when you come up perform your biceps curls. This works because you will burn more calories. You can try the same thing with the shoulder press.

Here’s a list of few exercises I like to perform because they engage 2 muscles groups (a big and a small).

1. Squat with overhead press
2. Squat with biceps curl
3. Lunges with Lateral Raise
4. Squat with Kick back
5. Chest Press on Ball with Hip Drive
6. Sumo Squat with dumbbell and Up right row

I could write more than 20 different exercises like this. Just use your imagination and I’m sure you can come up with something too. Try to mix a big muscle group (chest, back, legs) with a small muscle area (biceps, triceps, shoulders, calf). That’s all there is to it!

Don’t be afraid, it won’t happen. But it will tone you up and give you more lean muscle. To build bigger muscles you need to increase your calories a lot to feed muscle growth. When I say increase your calories, I don’t mean just an extra portion of brown rice for lunch or a second serving of vegetables. I mean adding a lot more calories, and the right kinds, and not just once in a while. You have to do this day after day consistently for a few months. Since this probably doesn’t describe you, don’t be afraid to lift some weights. You will not wake up the next morning ready for the next bodybuilding show as Ms. Olympia.

Now why weight lifting is important in your weight loss? Weight lifting is the corner stone of your program. You need to lift weight to tone your muscles and maybe add 1 or 2 pound of muscles. The beauty of a weight lifting program is you burn calories during your workout and after the workout. With the weight lifting you will increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and that’s mean you will burn more calories during the rest of the day. Even when you sleep. Yeah, even during your sleep. Your body need to work overtime when you have more muscles, even if it’s only 1 or 2 pounds. I don’t know a lot of people who will reject this proposition. Losing more calories when I sleep. But the extra 1 or 2 pound need to be lean muscles, make sure you don’t increase your body fat.

Does cardio do the same thing? No. Cardio burns calories during the workout, but when you stop your workout, that’s it, it’s over. However, if you do interval training, like I mention in my Express Fat Loss Program, you will still burn a few calories after your workout, but nothing like what you get from weight lifting.

Next time you are at the gym, take 30 minutes and start with your weight lifting and finish with 20 to 30 minutes cardio. This is the best way to burn the maximum of calories during your workout.  But don’t forget to perform a good 10 minutes of warm-up!

If you are not sure if you are doing the right exercises for your weight loss program, in my E-Book, The Ultimate Guide to Express Fat Loss, you will find different programs to help you with your weight lifting. I choose every exercise carefully to help you get maximum results. Every exercise has a picture and a description of how to perform the exercise correctly, so you can be sure you are getting maximum results!

I received an email few days ago from one of my subscribers. First, I love it when you send me emails and ask me questions! If you have any questions or concerns about your nutrition or workout programs drop me an email and I will reply to you as soon as I can!

Question from George, Seattle:

What is the best way to get rid of my ‘love handles’? I do a lot of abs especially for my oblique but my love handles are still there. Do you have a good exercise for this? Every time I workout I do some side bends with weights. I need to lose this love handles, I hate them!

My Answer:

Thank you for your question. I don’t want to upset you but doing side bends with weight could actually make your ‘love handles’ more visible. Why?  By doing side bends or any twisting motion, you risk increasing the size of your obliques and making your love handles more pronounced!

The only way to get rid of love handles is to lose weight. Yes I know, it’s probably not the answer you wanted to hear, and you were hoping for a magic exercise to target this area. Remember it’s impossible to do any spot reduction of fat!

Side Bend

By losing weight and decreasing your body fat, you love handles will disappear. Everyone has a weak point. Let me explain – when you start to gain weight it seems right away all the weight want to go to just one place like love handles, hips, or stomach. This is the first place where you start to store fat and that will be the last place for you to lose it!

Consistency in your nutrition, weight lifting and your cardio is the key to achieving your goals. Make sure you use all those keys in your lifestyle. To know more about the perfect way to lose weight, visit www.ExpressFatLoss.com for more details.

Adding to this is the fact that diets have become one of the biggest industries on the planet, generating billions of revenues each year. Unfortunately for the rest of us most diets make grandiose claims of amazing results that never seem to come true

If you want to find a diet that will work for you, then look to the professionals.

A team of professional nutritionalists and fitness experts developed The Express Fat Loss Program to live up to all of the hype. The result is nothing short of amazing – we have created a comprehensive plan that is proven to work time and time again!

The Express Fat Loss Program utilizes time-tested secrets and methods for losing weight and keeping it off for good!

In addition, The Express Fat Loss Program will give you the tools needed to  maintain an amazing body and body image, too! From nutrition plans and exercise programs to effective coaching and self-esteem methods, you are finally close to having the body you’ve always dreamed of!

Don’t wait any longer! Click here and get started on The Express Fat Loss Program today!