Most people have the ability to develop a lean body with toned adominals. Why then are so many people obese? The answer is that we waste time on ineffective methods of diet and exercise that don’t remove those ugly rolls of fat.

It’s time to stop making excuses why you can’t lose adominal fat, and finally do something to blast off those unwanted pounds. Here are three easily controlled factors that can give you a toned belly.

1. Diet. No, I don’t mean live on grapefruit and plain boring chicken for the rest of your life. But you have to be aware of what you eat and put into your body. You need to think of food as fuel for your body. Would your car run at peak performance levels if you pumped dirty, watered-down gasoline into its tank? Of course not! If you want toned abs, you need to put focus on proper nutrition. You work out effectively and lose weight if you don’t fuel your body for performance. Stop drinking soda, drink 8 cups of water daily and don’t eat over-processed foods that have no nutritional value. Go for all-natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil and unprocessed meats.

2. Give Up Slow Cardio. Love to spend hours on the treadmill or elliptical machine, but haven’t really seen any weight loss? You need to switch to interval training for effective fat loss. It’s been proven to speed up fat loss with less time spent exercising. Interval training is alternating between bursts of intense exercise and moderate exercise. For example, you might run as fast as you can for one minute, slow it down for two, then go hard again. You only need about 20 minutes of interval training to burn calories and burn fat.

3. Don’t be Afraid to Lift Weights. Ladies, this one is for you. Many women shy away from lifting anything but lightweight weights, thinking if they use heavier weights they will build large, bulky muscles like men have. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women do not have enough natural testosterone to build this type of muscle. If you see women bodybuilders with huge muscles, you can assume they’re taking something to help get that way. If you switch to heavier weights - and this applies to men as well - you will build more lean muscle mass, which has the effect of kick starting your metabolism to burn more calories even when you’re at rest.

If you develop good nutrition habits, incorporate interval training and weight lifting into your exercising, I guarantee that you will make huge improvements in your physique.