In this article I am going to give you 2 pieces of information for losing belly fat:

• An outline for a set of simple yet powerful techniques to lose whatever belly fat you have so that you end up with a flatter belly in as little as 90 days

• A set of 3 motivational tips that will keep you on track for those 90 days

These techniques will work even if you are in your 40s and think that your belly fat and love handles are the inevitable Middle Age Spread. You probably believe, partly through observation, that no matter what you do you will not be able to shift the fat, even through long hours in the gym.

If you want to keep thinking like that then it will stay true for you. Just know that losing belly fat and becoming fitter are actually very easy goals to accomplish and do not require lots of exercise; you just need to build the mindset and practice regularly for the change to bed in.

How can I say this?

I can say this because I am an active guy in his 30s who had to learn a way to get rid of his belly fat. I like to run, rock climb and workout but I never managed to shift the inch of fat that I had around my waist. I am quite slim in build so I did not have a massive mound of fat there; what I did have though was enough that I never had any real definition, and this was frustrating. I was a bit of a paradox: a slim guy who did not have a flat belly. From seeing friends and colleagues though I do not think I was alone in this situation.

Two simple but powerful insights changed my view and ultimately my body:

• Most of what you eat is actually fine for the condition of your body right now. To change this and have a healthier body you only have to change your diet in small but continuous steps.

• The range of exercises you do and their intensity is more important that the length of time you spend per week in total doing them.

So what do these points really mean in practice?

The first point comes from the idea that if you change how you eat and drink too quickly your older eating habits will eventually win out and you will not see any benefit of the change. You will revert,  sometimes without consciously noticing, back to a higher sugar and junk food diet.

This idea is worth noting because we hear about many "get thin quick" programs that really only work for a short time. The ideas I have used result in permanent fat loss, but only as long as you maintain them. The key is to push your boundaries slowly but continuously each week to develop a healthier diet.

The second idea refers to the fact that if you keep training the same way you will only train the same muscles and your body will not change shape. This includes you if all you do is run all the time. Spending long hours in the gym will not help you burn more fat, as you may already have realised.

It also refers to research that adding some high intensity interval training workouts to your weekly exercise program helps vary the intensity and focus of your training, and that this has a very big impact on the way your body burns fat.

However, as with diet, switching quickly to a pure high intensity training regime can have great temporary results, but it can then be hard to maintain. I would not recommend drastic changes to a workout regime for this reason.

How do you go about instigating these changes?

The first and most important step is to start making an exercise and eating log. You do not have to calculate each piece of food to the nearest calorie; simply to the nearest 50 if possible.

It is important that you also write down when and what you did when you exercised. This will give you an insight into how you exercise and where to change it.

This take me to the last but most important point by far: motivation.

Even if I could give you an insanely detailed step-by-step description of how to eat and exercise in the next 90 days I could not make you do it unless you had motivation.

The challenge is that motivation requires awareness and building up habits so that you are pushed in the right direction almost impulsively.

The good news though is you already have innate impulses and motivations; they are just fleeting and need to be developed.

Therefore, here are 3 tips to get you motivated and start losing that belly fat. Do these in the next couple of days.

• Make a note of when during the day you most felt like exercising or doing something. If possible, exercise when this urge comes. This will build on a habit that is already there and make it stronger.

• Make a note of how many times a week you ate a bar of chocolate/candy bar, drank a fizzy drink/soda or had a packet of crisps/chips. If possible once you note it and see the time of day it occurs, replace it with a piece of fruit, some nuts or even just a glass of water.

• Try and get 7 to 8 hours sleep a night for at least 5 nights a week. To do this simply make a note of when you went to bed and when you woke up naturally. Once you find this time period rearrange your day to accommodate the 7 to 8 hours sleep you need. The motivation here is not to use an alarm clock on some of the days so that you see how you actually sleep.

Hopefully you could try all 3 of these tips and will notice that you already have the tools to start changing how you move and eat in order to finally lose that belly fat and beat that gut monster once and for all.

I will repeat that motivation is as important, if not more, than having a shiny exercise regime that you tick off in the first week then forget about in the next month. Use the tips here to focus that motivation for giving yourself some real benefit.