Thoughts? could running for about 20 minutes every morning and doing sit ups tone my stomach?

Can't hurt, but...: You can't spot reduce preferentially fat from one part of your body with either directed exercise or dieting. Millions of people spend millions of dollars/year to erroneous achieve what you have learned can't be done. Exercise will firm abdominal muscles &, like calorie reduction, assist in overall weight loss. There are "apples and pears" in the population--"apples" store fat around their middle.