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Carbohydrates have an important role in the body, but do not base your meals on them. Try to avoid simple sugars like cane sugar, honey, fruit juices, syrups, and even a lot of fruit.

Drink at least 8 glasses of clean water each day as well. It will help in nutrient absorption and digestion and will help flush toxins from the body. Carry a bottle of water with you where ever you go and you will soon find it is easy to drink the recommended amount of water every day.

Bottom line, make sure you are supplying your body with well-balanced, healthy food every three to four hours. To ensure you are creating a calorie deficit, you should find out your daily caloric requirements that you need just to maintain your current bodyweight.

Since you are looking to reduce your current body weight by getting rid of some fat, you want to speed up creating a calorie deficit. One way is how we talked about above, doing cardio.

The other is by reducing the amount of calories you consume by 150-200 calories per day off your daily calorie maintenance amount.

For example, if you require, at your age, weight, activity levels, etc...2000 calories just to maintain your current weight, start reducing that number to 1800 to 1850 for a couple weeks.

If after a couple weeks you still do not see results, lower that number again by 150-200. Now you would be at 1600 to 1650 calories.

Again, the key to getting six pack abs is ridding your body of the fat covering the abs.

The only way to do this is by creating a calorie deficit so that your body burns calories for needed fuel. When you burn stored calories, you're burning body fat. The way to properly do this is a combo of increased, intense cardio and a gradual reduction of calories.

3. Weight training the abdominals

If you want proper ab development, you need to add resistance (weight) to your ab exercises. Abs are muscles just like biceps, triceps, pecs, glutes, whatever. You need resistance to properly strengthen and build them. The same goes for abdominals.

Here are some effective ab exercises to incorporate for proper ab stimulation.

Weighted crunches. Grab a dumbbell, either hold it in front of your face, or let it lie on your upper chest, under your chin, and perform regular crunches. You are now using your abs more to work against the leverage the dumbbell has created. Stick with a heavy enough weight where you can handle 10-15 reps, but no more. Remember, you need to create enough resistance where your abs are forced to work.

Cable Rope crunches--grab the tricep rope, kneel on your knees, and bend downwards, forcefully contracting your abs on the way down. It's basically a crunch, only, you are on your knees. But the contraction is the same. Don't swing with the hips, you are not using the abs very much if you do. Just a slight, 30 degree contraction until you feel the abs contract, hold for a couple seconds, then back up.

Weighted leg raises-- Lie flat on your back, with your hands tucked under your butt. Wrap your feet around a small dumbbell, and perform leg raises. Start with your feet about 6 inches from the ground, then raise them about 12-16 inches from the ground and then back down slowly. These can be done on the end of a bench as well.

Seated ab machine-- once again, do not swing all the way down, just far enough (30 degrees) to fully contract the abs, hold for a couple seconds, then back up. This is very similar to Cable rope crunches.

Stability Ball Crunches-- working on the stability ball will incorporate balance into your abdominal work. They are effective at strengthening your core region, which is your abs and lower back.

You lie down on a stability ball like you are going to perform a crunch. Position yourself on the ball so your lower back is resting on it. Keep your feet close together on the floor making your body less stable (helps incorporate more balance on your part) and place your hands behind your head or folded on your chest. Crunch your upper body towards your knees, exhaling as you contract your abs. Under muscular control, lower yourself back to the original position keeping full tension on the abs.

Regardless of what exercise you do, the key is to add weight/resistance. If not, you will never increase the amount of lean muscle tissue in the area. You only need to train your abs twice a week for maximum results. Once again, treat them like any other muscle group (which means you wouldn't train them more often). Combine this weight training with proper diet and intense cardio and that elusive six-pack is yours to be had

A good program you could also have a look at is the Total Abs Solution