episode 242: weighted vests: hype or health?
Weighted vests are everywhere right now--and that’s definitely not a bad thing. But there’s a lot of buzz going around out there and I know many of you are wondering:
👉 Will they make you stronger?
👉 Will they actually build bone density?
👉 Or is it just another overhyped “fitness hack”?
In this episode I’m cutting through the noise with what’s actually true (and what isn’t). I’ll share:
The real benefits of weighted vests (hint: it’s not what TikTok says)
How to know if your vest is actually doing anything for you
Why intensity matters
If you’ve been tempted to buy one, or if you’re already walking around with 8 pounds strapped to your chest, this episode will give you the no bullshit breakdown you need to make the choice that’s right for you.
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242
[00:00:00] All right, friends. It's episode 2 42 of The Diet Diaries and this is the Weighted vest episode, making sure my microphone is not muted. Alright, sounded like you guys were pretty into this when I surveyed on Instagram, and this is one of those things that is such like a hot button. And there's so much buzz and so much talk about it, and there's a lot of stuff I'm seeing out there that's like really pissing me off and things that I think are actually not helping you and not serving you.
Um, that if you trust me and you rely on this podcast, and use this podcast as a helpful source of information, then I hope that you will trust that what I'm sharing with you is helpful, right? Because in some ways some of you might think, well, how do I trust her? Like this is just another point of view.
Um. Okay. But the idea is that our values are aligned. I've established trust with you that, you know, you can look to me as a reliable source of information, that I do my research, that I'm not jumping on fads, that I am getting my information from reliable, um, [00:01:00] evidence backed sources, um, and not just like a TikTok influencer.
So I'm gonna start this by saying, which I think everyone knows, but. Maybe not. Um, I wear a weighted vest, so I am definitely a fan of the weighted vests. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that they're a waste of time by any stretch of the imagination. But what you're wearing, why you're wearing it, what you expect to get out of it, I think is the big opportunity here.
So I wanna kind of start off first with what kind of all the talk is and what the actual facts are. Right? There's a lot of talk out there that wearing a weighted vest will make you stronger and that it will improve your bone density and help prevent. Osteoporosis. And I wanna tell you right now that there is no research out there that shows either of those things.
Um, one, because the weighted vest trend is brand fucking new and. The research, getting any amount of high quality research is a very lengthy, time consuming process. And to be honest, there might never be any high quality research around this [00:02:00] because this is something you have research costs money and someone has to get funding for it, and especially with what's going on in the country and other things that are not even getting funding.
Weighted vest research is probably not gonna be at the top of the list. Um, and so people who are making those claims that if you wear a weighted vest, you are getting stronger and improving your bone density are literally making that up or copying what someone else is saying. There is no research that shows that.
So I just wanna be upfront about that. Is it possible that those things are true? Yes, of course it's possible. But if we look at kind of like the facts of what you're doing, how often you're doing it, and how heavy it is. Probably not so likely. We can kind of extrapolate and make comparisons to the strength training research we have and we look at, if we look at wearing a weighted vest compared to the strength training data we have, it's not really the same.
Like you can't compare wearing a weighted vest to the intensity of strength training that needs to happen in order to, um, [00:03:00] get stronger and build bone density. That being said, there's no downside, right? There is nothing bad that is going to happen from you wearing a weighted vest unless you wear too heavy of a vest too soon and you like irritate your shoulder or your neck muscles, right?
That's the only potential downside, and it's very, very easy to prevent that from happening. But I think it's really important to know like why you're doing something and. What you're expecting to get out of it and how are you going to know if you are getting that thing right? If you are wearing it to help prevent osteoporosis and build bone density.
Um, the only way you're going to know if that is your outcome is with a DEXA scan, and then you won't know if the outcome of your DEXA scan is related to wearing your weighted vests or if you're someone who's doing strength training. If you only wear a weighted vest, then yeah, that could be a variable that you're kind of quote unquote testing, but you won't really know.
Um. And in terms of strength, right? You can certainly feel strength is something obviously that you feel and that [00:04:00] you can measure with increased weight over time. Um, but again, if you are doing the weighted vest in isolation, then potentially you might be able to pay attention to that. But if you're doing the weighted vest in addition to other forms of exercise, especially including strength training, again, you're not gonna really know.
So. And again, I'm not saying there's not a problem with that, but you can't make a claim and you can't say, oh, the weighting, the weighted vest is doing all these things for me when you don't actually know what it's doing for you. So I wanted to kind of share that upfront because any, any influencer, and there are, I mean, I've seen these recommendations coming from doctors, right?
Doctors are not be all, end all, they don't know everything. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I know more than a doctor knows about certain topics, but I also understand, um. What research is, what it isn't, when it exists, and what it doesn't, and when you can use it to gather insights and make claims and when you can't.
Right. So there are no claims that can be made around improving strength, building strength and maintaining or [00:05:00] improving bone density with weighted vests. Facts. Okay. The main reason, the main benefit that we would want to use vaed weighted vests is to help. Make your workout, your movement more intense and to make it easier to get your heart rate up, which has cardiovascular benefits, right?
And you can feel that instantly. Right. You put on a weighted vest, you do your walk and you will know whether or not it is adding some additional intensity to make your workout feel a little bit harder, right? So if you're someone who's been walking for quite some time and you're like, I would really like to increase the, the intensity of this, but you don't want to run and maybe you don't have access to hills, um, increasing your speed is one way, but adding a weighted vest is another way.
Now it has to be enough weight. This is like one of my real big pet peeves out there. There is this recommendation of floating around out there. I have no idea where it came from. I'm pretty sure that one person said it and then [00:06:00] everyone just copied it, that you should use eight to 10% of your body weight.
Now here's, I will share some numbers. My weight fluctuates. I haven't weighed myself in a very long time, but I, you know, kind of frame of reference in like the high one seventies to like the low one eighties. Okay, so. 10% of that, let's just call it 18 pounds, like for a nice, even number 8%. I'm doing math on my calculator would be 14 pounds.
I started with a 20 pound weighted vest and I'm now up to 26. After using that vest for probably about four to five months, I could look back in my Amazon purchase history to see when I got it. I think it's somewhere around there. So I started well above 10%. Now this is a case by case basis, but if.
The purpose of wearing your weighted vest is to increase the intensity of your workouts to feel like you are working harder because you want to, um, because it feels good for you and or because you want to get [00:07:00] more zone two cardio and this makes it easier for you to do so, or because you know that getting your heart rate up, um, is good for your cardiovascular health.
Um, and because when you work out with, uh, have a more challenging workout, it just feels good for you physically. You get mental health benefits, right? Any of these reasons why, then you need to be paying attention to see if the vest is actually doing that for you, right? So if you just buy, if you take eight to 10% of your body weight and you put on that vest and you don't really feel that much of a difference, well guess what?
The vest is not doing anything for you then. Like, I hate to break it to you, but that's the truth. Again, there's no downside. Nothing bad is happening, but if you're expecting these outcomes and you want these outcomes, well, you're not going to get them. If you want a change, there's going to have to be some level of challenge and discomfort.
It's going to need to feel heavy. This is no different than with strength training, where if you only ever pick up a super lightweight and it never feels heavy, you're not going to get stronger. Right? Our bodies [00:08:00] adapt. With challenge, with stimulus, that feels challenging. So that we have to respond. We have to figure out how to deal with that thing that feels hard and unfamiliar, and we do it little bits at a time.
So starting, starting with 10% is probably okay. Starting with 8%. Feels very light to me unless you have, um, I would say like upper back, neck stuff or you literally do not ever pick up a weight ever. Those are the situations in which I would start on the lighter side. I think starting around 10% is probably fine for most people.
But notice the word I'm using here, which is start. You can't put that on and then use that weight forever, and then again, expect to continue to get the benefits. It's the same thing with other forms of exercise. If you want to continue to get the results that you want and you want to continue to see progress with [00:09:00] those results, you will need to continue to change the input, the stimulus.
Now, if you don't want to continue to get progress and you just wanna maintain, okay. You know, that's kind of like a separate thing, but I think most of us who are putting on a weighted vest. Or doing it for a reason. 'cause we want an outcome. 'cause we want some type of progress. And so your body's going to adapt to that and it's probably gonna adapt somewhat quickly.
So my recommendation would would be, if you're buying a vest, buy one that's adjustable, don't buy one that's a set weight. Because then like if you buy, like I've heard people wearing like eight pound vests. I'm like. Honestly, I don't think anyone belongs wearing an eight pound vest again, unless you have like an injury or you know that you can only sustain that amount of load on your upper body.
But if you generally don't have any upper back or neck soft and you are generally like in pretty good physical condition, even if you're not like super actively strength training and eight pound vest is really not gonna feel like much. I would challenge you to start maybe more 10, 12, 13, [00:10:00] but get an adjustable and they make those mine's adjustable.
My baseline vest was 20 pounds and it has little sandbags that go add an additional, um. 12 pounds, so it came with them all put in. I took them all out and I wore the 20 pounds. It feels heavy. Like I, I'm wearing something. It's heavy. It's challenging. That's the idea. Like do I have to kind of like adjust it and futz with it once in a while?
Yeah, I do. I feel like I am carrying something. That's kind of the point. If you don't really feel like you're carrying something and that doesn't feel physically challenging at all and or you don't feel it elevating your heart rate at all. It's not really enough. And if it causes you to slow down, so let's say you walk at like, I don't know, a 3.5 mile pace and you put the vest on and now you have to like slow down a lot.
And again, so that is impacting, it's not getting your heart rate up. That's, that's impacting things. Maybe that vest is too heavy for you. Maybe you do need to go a little bit later so that you can maintain your pace, right? You're trying to like increase the [00:11:00] intensity of the workout. That's really the idea here.
That is really the only thing that you can directly measure the impact of and know if you're getting that benefit and that we know that there are kind of direct benefits to getting your heart rate up and the vest is capable of doing that. Um. So intensity matters. If you want an outcome and you want to be making progress, intensity matters.
This doesn't mean you have to kill yourself. This doesn't mean it has to feel like level 10. If there's an intensity exists on a spectrum, right? A little bit of intensity counts, right? You need a little bit of intensity, and so you need to be paying attention to what that feels like for you. Do not just take a blanket recommendation of wearing an eight pound vest or a 10 pound vest and assume that that is enough.
You need to put on that vest and you need to pay attention to what it feels like for you. What are you experiencing in your own body? This is no different than all the recommendations out there where people tell you what to do and then you just do it and you follow it. Why are you doing it? What are you getting out of it?
What does that feel like for you? What do you notice that's different? You need to pay attention. [00:12:00] I'm, I'm feeling like I'm maybe being a little aggressive, and I don't mean to come off that way. I'm getting riled up because I think, like so many of us, and this has happened to me too, we just get accustomed to just doing what someone on social media tells us to do, thinking that we're just going to do that and it will work for us and we don't have to like.
Think about it, if we just do that and follow that, it will work, right? This is like, this is like diet mentality and that just isn't true. And so I feel like I'm getting myself really worked up. You guys can probably tell that I'm like, this is a little bit of a hot button for me and so I apologize. I'm trying, I wanna say this with care.
Um, and I have done this before too, but I want, what I, I want to help you be more thoughtful. So you want to pay attention when you put your vest on, what are you experiencing? How does it feel? And after you have worn that vest for a period of time, if you want to continue to make progress, you're going to need a heavier vest.
This is again, why I'm recommending getting an adjustable vest. I noticed after several months of wearing my 20 pound vest that it was getting easy and then I didn't do anything about it right away. Partially 'cause I couldn't like find where I put [00:13:00] my little weights and like, whatever, but I'm like, I need to change something.
And so I did a week ago or 10 days ago, I, I added just a two pound weight and I'm like, this doesn't really feel any different. Then I added four pounds. So it was six pounds total. And it's like, okay, now I feel a difference. And it feels different. That additional six pounds feels different to me. Um, I feel I can feel the weight on my body.
It feels more challenging kind of physically, and it's also easier for me to get my heart rate up, right? Your body is adapting constantly to what you give it and what you don't give it, which is amazing and wonderful and it's one of the most incredible parts about living in a human body. And so why we are not machines?
'cause machines cannot adapt. Um, mechanical machines. Anyway, AI is a whole other story. Um, but you wanna be paying attention and you want to be adapting, just like you would never lift the same weights on your strength workout forever. And if you are doing that, you might need to change that. You would be adding weight, you'd be changing your exercise, you'd be changing the number of reps, you'd be changing the intensity in some way.
The [00:14:00] same thing applies to this. Um, and I feel like I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I, I have a note about this. I think there's like, I don't know. I get this, I get this, um, this feeling that the perception is that weighted vests are like this cool new trendy thing. The truth is that the military has been using weighted vests for decades.
This is not a new concept. Um, and there is a term called rucking, and there are these things called rucksacks, which are basically weighted packs. We have one, Danny bought one several years ago. It's actually called a rock. And what it is, it is, it is a 25 pound steel plate that sits in like this little pack and you wear it as a backpack and all the weight is on your back.
I will tell you it's pretty uncomfortable. A weighted vest distributes the weight front to back, so it's a lot more comfortable to wear when you have some weight on the front and some weight on the back. [00:15:00] But this concept has been around for a long time. This isn't something that some influencer invented or came up with.
It's something that somebody kind of repurposed. And so the fact that the military has been using it all this time. It kind of gives some credence to it. Right. And the purpose they were doing it is to help build endurance and build cardiovascular capacity. And yes. When they are wearing 50, 60, 70 pound packs, is that potentially building strength?
Yes, because it's heavy enough to do so wearing an eight or a 10 pound vest on a walk. I would be shocked if there will ever be research to even test that, but even more so to show that that builds strength. It's just not enough, and again, there's no downside and it's probably not enough to really up the intensity either.
But you need to feel that out for yourself. Do not just take a point blank recommendation. You can use the eight to 10% as a starting point for where to test out. I, again, I would say probably more on the 10% side [00:16:00] of things. And again, it needs to feel heavy. You need to prepare yourself. This is not like a, I think people think like, oh, I'm gonna put on a weighted vest and it's not gonna feel like anything.
I'm making all these benefits from it. No, and if you want to get something out of it, it needs to feel challenging. I think there's been a lot of like. I think the communication that's out there around this makes it seem like, oh, I just throw this thing on. It's super easy and it's no big deal, and I get all these benefits.
Yes, you could throw this thing on. To do a walk or you know, if you really wanna challenge yourself a run that you're already doing and make it more challenging, but you need to physically experience that challenge, you're not going to get the benefits unless you physically experience that challenge. If you don't feel a difference, you're not going to get a difference, I think is kind of a really good way of capturing it.
If you don't feel a difference, you're not going to get a difference. Um, and I think what's being sold to us is something other than that, that it's like this little thing. I kind of equate it to putting on like two pound ankle weights, which I'm sorry. If you are a two pound ankle weight person, and [00:17:00] again, there's no downside, but two pound ankle weights are not going to.
Have a, um, significant impact in your lower body strength in a way that's going to show up in your everyday life, right? That is not what's going to help you get up off of a toilet when you are 80. That is not, is what going to help you lift like a 50 pound box up off a floor when your kid's moving into college.
That is not, is what is going to, can't find my word. That's is not what's going to help you pick your 40 pound grand kid up off the floor. Two pound ankle weights are not gonna do that. Just like an eight pound vest is not going to help you lose weight, improve your bone density, make you stronger. A 20, a 25 pound.
Getting stronger over time will help improve your cardiovascular capacity. So again, like. Walking around with two pound ankle weights. And I know like you do like the side leg lifts and your leg burns, like that's more of an endurance thing. And your, your outer leg will burn even if you do it without those weights.
'cause legs are heavy. I'm going down a bit [00:18:00] of a, um, a, a side path. But like if you put on two pound leg weights and you like, you know, do other, like if you were to walk or um, go up and down stairs, like you would not really feel much of a difference putting an eight pound vest on top of your body, which weighs.
You know, a significant amount of weight is not, it's not gonna really feel like anything. So the whole point really is it needs to feel like something, um, if you want to get a benefit. And that benefit is going to be around increasing intensity, which has cardiovascular benefits, mental health benefits, kind of like, I think confidence and capacity.
Like, oh, look what my body can do when I challenge it more. It is. There is no evidence to show that it's going to improve your bone, bo improve your bone density. There is no evidence to show that it is going to improve your strength. So to be clear, you cannot replace strength training with wearing a weighted vest while walking.
You cannot do that if you want to get stronger, if you don't care about getting stronger, sure, go ahead. But if you are [00:19:00] someone who prioritizes strength training and wants to get stronger. The weighted vest is in addition to that because it does something different. It's not going to improve your strength.
There is lots of research that shows that strength training does improve bone density. There is no research, and I'm no repeating myself, but I wanna be crystal clear. Strength training and wearing a weighted vest are not the same thing. They not, they do not do the same thing. They cannot be swapped out for each other.
And if you want to get the benefits of a weighted vest, it needs to feel challenging. Just like if you wanna get the benefits of any exercise, it needs to feel challenging, also challenging that you dread it or you hate doing it. No. But there needs to be an amount of challenge, and if you want to continue to get progress, you need to increase the stimulus to keep getting that challenge over time.
Progressive overload. This is how our bodies adapt. So. And you gotta pay attention. What am I feeling? What am I experiencing? What am I noticing? Not, oh, this girl on TikTok said she wears an eight to 10 pound vest. So I'm gonna do that and just assume that I'm gonna get all these [00:20:00] benefits. It just doesn't work that way, and we need to be thinking more critically and paying more attention.
Not just about weighted vests. This, this goes for protein recommendations and veggies and all the things out there, all the things that people recommend to you, including what I suggest. You need to pay attention and see how is this working for me? What am I noticing in my own body? How is this positively impacting me?
How is this negatively impacting me? Is this changing? Is it moving the dial on any of the things that I know are a problem aren't working for me? Yes or no? Not just doing it because someone told me to and it worked for them. Not even doing it 'cause someone told me to. Because there's research, right?
Your lived experience matters just as much as whatever research says. And I just can't express that enough. And I think that's my biggest thing with this weighted vest thing, is we're just all like little minions taking like advice from people who honestly don't know what they're talking about and are making claims that have no substantiation whatsoever.
And it frustrates me [00:21:00] and um. I just wanna set the record straight, so thanks for, thanks for hanging in there with me. I know I got really hyped up on this one. Um, share this with a friend, please, who might need it. If you've got questions, reach out. If you want a recommendation, reach out. I'm here for it and, um, I'll talk to you soon.