Considering our lifestyles having to control our stress becomes a matter of life and death. We have so many deadlines to cope with that we need a release. Some people take to meditation, others to stress relieving medication but the best antidote to stress is exercise.

Without a release for stress in our lives we tend to carry it out until one day we just blow up over something pointless.

Men can get a lot of stress from women about their physical fitness and especially spreading belly fat.

Men often start following abdominal work outs when their woman start complaining that they are starting to look FAT. To keep their lady from worrying about them (or to stop the incessant nagging - take your pick), they start making time to work out three or four times every week.

They may have to wake up a half-hour earlier everyday, or sleep a half-hour later, but they dig into some simple workouts to get rid of flab around their middle. Regardless of why people start on their stomach shaping workouts, they end up more healthy and more alert.

Here are a few tips to help you lose belly fat.

When you are doing lower leg raises, you should not feel pain in your lower back. One position that I find effective for developing abdominal muscles is the side plank. You can learn many side plank variations in yoga and pilates workouts.

The leg that moves should start with the thigh perpendicular to the ground.

Lower the leg until the foot almost touches the floor.

Raise the leg back to the starting position and repeat. Perform this exercise with both legs.

2.To actually increase and  strengthen stomach muscles instead of just increasing endurance, try adding weighted crunches to your workout as well as weighted hanging leg raises.

Keep your workouts short but intense - Working out for any longer than 45 minutes will be detrimental to your goal. After this amount of time performing such high intensity exercises, your body will actually start to burn muscle for energy, making your stomach muscles look weak and underdeveloped.