Do you find that your body type informs the type of exercises you focus on? I know that you can't have targeted weight loss (ie. I can't do anything to make my body burn the fat in my thighs first) but I still tend to fall into the mentality that focusing on "problem areas" helps tone those areas and make them appear smaller or more fit. Does anyone else do this?

Personally, I carry weight in my hips, legs and a little bit in my arms (I don't tend to carry weight in my abdomen), and I find that I really focus on my bottom half and on my arms, and only focus on my abs/back secondarily (ie. I do push ups and planks daily, which are core exercises but I don't do exercises that specifically focus on the abs/back as often).

My friend who carries more of her weight in her abdomen and not so much in her legs told me that she does a ton of core stuff, but not as much legs-based stuff. Does anyone else find this to be true and/or do you think that targeted exercises are ideal, or do you think evenly exercising the whole body is always a superior choice?

I exercise my body based on what I'm trying to achieve in terms of physical fitness, not physical appearance, so I don't find this to be true for me. If I'm training for a long-distance hike, I do a lot of core exercise, leg strength training, shoulder strength training, and specific cardio exercises. For a 5K, it's a little different.

As you already stated, targeted exercises don't work for fat loss. So if I want to lose fat in my stomach, all the core in the world won't work. I can simply follow whichever diet achieves fat loss for me, and hope it will come off eventually. I'm always last to lose in my thighs and butt, which in addition to being the fattiest parts of my body are also my strongest and most muscled!

You can use targeted exercises to achieve a certain look, though. For example, squats and other glute-based strength training can help lift and shape your butt. Push ups and the like can lift your chest. Certain arm exercises can achieve attractive muscle curves. So it's more about shaping areas than reducing fat in those areas.

I used to focus on my upper body because it's the weakest. Now that I'm a competitive dancer, most of my training revolves around dance improvements. I dance, of course, and I also run to help improve endurance (those 1-2 minutes per dance seem like forever!) and I lift heavy to improve my strength and preserve my muscle mass while I work to lose fat. I'm trying to incorporate yoga as well to improve my flexibility so my turn out and kicks improve. Core strength work is very important for maintaining a rigid upper body during complex dance movements and improves areas such as kick height and leaps.

So to summarize that mass of text (), I don't bother focusing my training on spot-reducing fat. I focus it on effect I want to achieve either visually (squats!) that involves muscle training or to reach my dance goals.

Admittedly, I may be a little shallow and really just want to get rid of my flabby thighs/butt lol.