You eat right, you exercise, but you still have difficulties losing weight in specific spots. Why is that? You are doing everything right according to standard weight loss rules, so why won’t the weight fall off? Well, there may be a few factors involved.

Do You Really Need To Lose Weight?

First, you may not need to lose any weight in that spot that you are focused on. Exercise causes you gain muscle, and the weight that you are seeing on the scale may not be a reflection of your fat, but of your muscle.

Moreover, losing weight would mean a reduction in muscle for some people, so you really need to take a look at your fat to muscle ratio and decide whether weight loss in a certain spot is really a necessary goal, or if that areas is exactly where it should be in terms of fat and muscle.

Many people have body image issues and are not even aware of it. If you feel compulsive about your weight or a specific spot on your body in any way, you may be suffering from something such as body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and need to look at ways to treat that issue rather than ways to shrink that spot.

“…people who have body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) think about their real or perceived flaws for hours each day.” – ADAA

When You Really Can’t Lose Fat From A Specific Spot

If you have extra fat to lose, and you are participating in exercise and eating right, then something else may be going on in your body. It is definitely not a lack of effort that promotes the weight to stay in a certain spot, so other issues need to be looked at.

1. Hormone levels off

There are many hormones in the body that effect weight loss and fat placement, and if your hormones are not in balance, then it can be very hard to lose weight on a certain spot no matter how much you work out, exercise, or train.

There are hormones that affect appetite, metabolism, and how your body interacts with fat, and if those hormones are out of balance, you will have a hard time losing weight.

You can go to the doctor and ask that your hormone levels be tested to see if something is occurring in your body that you are not aware of. For instance, you may have a thyroid issue that is affecting your hormones, and once you treat the underlying cause of hormonal imbalances, you can start to receive benefits from your weight loss efforts.

2. Nutrition

Even if you are eating a healthy diet, nutrition may be a huge factor in holding on to the extra weight in certain areas. Not only does your body react differently to some foods versus others, there are some foods that certain people should avoid altogether as brought out in the Trouble Spot Nutrition diet. For instance, you may still be eating too many calories or the wrong type of calories.

As an example, if you are eating a clean diet, you may not be counting calories or worrying about overeating too much because the food is healthy for your body. However, too many calories is not good, no matter how healthy the food is, and weight loss won’t happen if you are packing in more calories than you are burning off.

Alternatively, if you try to eat smaller portions of unhealthy food, the calorie content may be too high and you may be taking in more calories that you are burning off.

A rough estimate of calories that you should be consuming would be 12 calories per pound of weight. However, if you don’t want to count calories, you can solve this by listening to your body and only eating the amount of food required to feel full.

Difficulties Losing Weight In Specific Spots

The bottom line is that your body is going to lose weight where it wants to. Spot reduction is considered a myth by most experts. Some people may fortunately lose weight in the areas that they want to lose weight first, but this is not the case for most people.

If you are losing weight, then that is good. The problem spots will eventually catch up with the rest of the body if your hormones and calorie intake is good.