You may have found that though you know your abs are strong and frankly you know you have a 6 pack somewhere in there, you seem to have ab fat covering it up.  There are some diet pills that in the past, before the FTC suit, claimed that it was because of high cortisol levels that are actually only connected to a severe and rather uncommon medical condition.  It’s in a way like thyroid disorders.  Diet pills play off them, but they have no basis in reality. 

Cortisol to their credit is actually a stress hormone, so they did get that right.  Some people have a higher tendency toward greater ab fat than other areas.  It definitely does happen.  So measure your abdominal area to find out.  It should be a 35 inch waistline or less ideally speaking.  Don’t do crunches to burn it.  They build muscle, but they don’t burn fat.  Just participate in more cardio workouts and the fat will come off in every area, including the abs to get rid of fat in general and reveal muscles and otherwise in general for the look you actually want.  This will give you the ultimate results that you can really like.