Are you doing thousands of crunches, eating well and not seeing those flat abs you have been promised?  The reason for this may be as simple as changing the way you work your abdominal muscles.  If you want flat abs, then you need to work out that way.  When doing any abdominal exercise, the natural reaction is that the abs are expanding outward.  But what you need to be doing is sucking in your abdominal wall and fighting against the outward push. This builds up your transverse abdominals, giving your abdomen a lean and flat appearance instead of sticking out.  So suck it in like your taking a photo and get ready to rock that summer body.