I have been both a professional dancer (fulltime career) and later a personal trainer. From both the literature and personal experience on physical activity, I have seen no evidence regarding spot weight reductions (as in losing X amount of fat from around, say, my triceps).
Recently, as part of my physique-feminizing regimen (I'm a mesomorph who can change shape quite easily), I tried doing the complete opposite of what you're supposed to do to gain muscle. It involves a bit of nuance, but basically this involves doing sets of high repetitions (70-80) with little or no weights, not eating after workouts and cutting calories (especially proteins).
To my surprise, this workout ritual didn't seem to work, which makes me question conventional wisdom regarding muscle building. It's not that I was beefing up or anything, but nor was I noticeably reducing muscle. Just toning and maintaining what I already had (perhaps I'm one of those people with weird enzymes who should have joined Special Forces or something).
My new workout is one that worked for me before, which just involves cardio workouts (bike, treadmill, etc.), stretching, and low protein. Additionally, now that I'm back on hormones I'll hopefully be able to see better results.