Can Wearing A Weighted Vest Help You Keep Weight Off? YES

One of the goals at the Kahn Center is to help patients achieve and maintain a goal weight consistent with optimal health. Weight loss is possible with many diets, but weight regain is inevitable in many. Are there strategies to avoid regaining weight?

A weight vest is a popular fitness tool that adds some strain to daily movement and work outs. Is it possible that wearing a weighted vest (known as gravitational loading or GL) would assist in maintaining weight loss? A new study explored this option. 

STUDY

The purpose of this study was to explore whether and how GL during intentional weight loss (WL) influences subsequent weight regain.

Pilot data come from a convenience sample of 18 older adults (70 years, 83% women, 78% white) with obesity who participated in a 6-month WL intervention and also returned for 24-month follow-up assessment.

Participants were originally assigned to 6-months of caloric restriction plus 10 h/day weighted vest use (WL+VEST; n = 9) or caloric restriction only (WL Only; n = 9). Body weight (BW) and resting metabolic rate (RMR) were collected at baseline, 6, and 24 months. WL+VEST and WL

Participants lost significant and similar amounts of BW by 6-months [WL+VEST: –11 kg versus WL Only: –10 kg.

By 24-months, the WL+VEST group regained approximately half of lost BW [−4.8 kg] while the WL Only group regained all lost BW.

CONCLUSIONS

This fascinating pilot study suggests that wearing a weighted vest use during caloric restriction may be associated with reduced weight regain. 

Participants randomized to the weighted vest group (WL+VEST) received an appropriately sized vest (Hyper Vest PRO®, Austin, TX), based on their ability to wear the vest under clothing and complete a full range of motion/chest expansion without restriction, and were asked to wear the vest up to 10 h/day during the most active part of their day (with a goal of at least 50% of awake time wearing the weighted vest).

The weight of the vest was increased weekly by study staff, with the goal of replacing all lost weight up to a maximum amount of 15% of the participant’s baseline weight.

It appears that a strategy to avoid weight regain includes gravitational load from a weighted vest. The theory is that a process called the “gravitostat” triggers lower extremity osteocytes sensing changes in body weight (BW) and respond by sending a systemic signal to the brain, influencing appetite and subsequent body fat stores.