tell me, is it truth or a myth that what someone would refer to as their "trouble areas" are always the last to show any sign of weight loss?

Bridgette asks: You always hear people say that the “trouble areas” of your body are the last to start losing inches. For example, I tend to put on weight first in my thigh area (definitely my trouble spot) and last in my mid-section. Over the past two weeks, I’ve had significant loss in my waist, yet haven’t lost even a centimeter in my thighs. So, tell me, is it truth or a myth that what someone would refer to as their “trouble areas” are always the last to show any sign of weight loss? Thanks!

Bridgette, good question. It reminds me of the old saying, “Look for something lost and you’ll always find it in the last place you look.” You are probably exercising and eating right in an effort to lose some pounds and inches and that is terrific. It may be that there is a particular are that, when you look in the mirror, your critical eye is immediately drawn to. That’s the case for many, many, many people. Your focus may be on that area for numerous reasons dating all the way back to childhood insecurities, and over time, you develop a hyper-critical view. Consequently, as you lose weight, you will always be slightly more critical of that area than others.

Now you may really have some extra inches in those areas. That may be the cause of your initial feelings. Through puberty, your body will build fat cells throughout the body. No matter how hard you work, you can shrink those cells, but you can never get rid of those cells. As you exercise, your body will burn fat from throughout your body without any sort of of strategy. So as you burn fat, stores will shrink from all the fat deposits. You can’t focus your burn in one particular area, or what people call “spot reducing”. It simply isn’t possible. What you can do is continue to burn your fat stores knowing that, at some point, you will get to the area you want to reduce. And the size of the fat cells will shrink, but they will not disappear.

A good friend of mine, a professional dancer, used to work out like a madman. He would dance several hours every day, work out, eat right, everything that you should be doing. But he had a little fat on his thighs that drove him nuts. As he had to stare in the mirror hour after hour for his profession, and as his thighs drove him crazy as the one imperfect area on his body, he finally had liposuction on that area. That is the only way to rid an area of the fat cells.

So keep up the work and know that you will hit those spots soon enough. You just need to be patient and keep fighting the good fight.

Rock on!