"Do crunches/situps to reduce your tummy" - If I had a cent for everytime that was said to me, I would be a billionaire. But people fail to realize that this seemingly logical "truth", is a total myth! You do not lose any tummy fat by doing crunches/situps, anymore than you do by doing biceps.
This myth makes people believe that by working out a muscle underneath the layer of undesired fat, the fat will melt away! Fat is lost through out the body in a uniform fashion depending on genetics. However this myth which was started by the afternoon infomercials seems to be propagated on and on and on. They are able to sell more and more stupid devices like abdomen belts etc due to the prevalence of this myth.
You would be much better off doing cardio or weight training, than trying to strain those abdomen muscles exclusively to get rid of your tummy. Although, by doing crunches you improve your muscles in your abdomen it does not help if you have any amount of fat in your tummy, which will cover that six pack.
Also another major disadvantage of doing situps is that, you may end up getting lower back pain, which sucks because you could have avoided this altogether if you knew about the spot-reduction myth before hand!
So control your food, and do whatever exercise you feel like and count calories to make sure you are not over-eating. and your tummy will vanish in no time!
Here are some more links from Wikipedia and exrx.net about this myth.
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