Study shows walking in a weighted vest could burn three pounds of fat in three weeks
Women’s Health cover star Gemma Atkinson knew what she was doing when she started training in a weighted vest. I remember when I first saw her post a workout video wearing one back in lockdown; tens of people commented saying they’d been inspired to buy their own, and a quick scroll on TikTok proves that thousands of you have followed suit since. Why? Besides Gemma, trainers are huge advocates of wearing a weighted vest for everything from building muscle to improving bone density, and science corroborates their claims.
The good news is that to yield these benefits, you don’t need to go quite as hard as Gem did. When one writer tried simply adding a weighted vest to her daily walks for a week, she found that her heart rate was considerably higher, while the increase in intensity meant she immediately experienced a bigger endorphin boost. Now, we’ve uncovered a study that proves wearing a weighted vest during the day – so, walking, doing your daily chores – without any intentional workouts could lead to three pounds of fat loss over just three weeks, without losing any muscle mass. Here’s exactly what the study found.
The study
The aim of the study, published in The Lancet, was to investigate the effects of increased weight loading on body weight and body fat.
The methods
69 men and women between the ages of 18 and 70 with mild obesity were instructed to wear a weighted vest for eight hours per day for three weeks, and otherwise live as usual (they weren’t instructed to perform any additional exercise, or to change their nutrition).
The participants were randomly assigned into two groups:
A control group: participants wore 1kg weighted vests
A treatment group: participants wore 11kg weighted vests
They were asked to record daily the time they used their weighted vest in total (participants were permitted to deviate by 20% from the advised eight hours per day), and the time they were standing while using the weighted vest.
Measurements of total body fat mass, fat-free mass, and fat percentage were taken using bioelectrical impedance analysis (also known as BIA – which, it's worth noting, can be less reliable than a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan) before the study began, and once the intervention had ended. Participants were also asked to complete weekly dietary food questionnaires for the study’s authors to analyse.
The results
After three weeks, the results showed:
Those in the treatment group, wearing 11kg weighted vests, lost 1.6kg in weight
Those in the control group, wearing 1kg weighted vests, lost 0.3kg in weight
Muscle mass percentage in both women and men remained the same after the three-week intervention. These results applied to both women and men.
The conclusion
‘The effect on fat mass we found, from this short experiment, exceeded what's usually observed after various forms of physical training. But we weren't able to determine whether the reduction was in subcutaneous fat (just under the skin) or the dangerous visceral kind (belly fat) in the abdominal cavity that's most strongly associated with cardiovascular diseases and diabetes,’ says study author Professor John-Olov Jansson of Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.
However, the authors of the study added that three weeks is a ‘substantially shorter’ duration than other existing studies with similar or the same results for weight loss. The authors attributed these results to an increase in energy expenditure due to the additional physical workload.
What does this mean for us?
While the results are clearly very compelling, it’s worth noting that there are a few limitations. For one, the authors of the study note that it would be useful for future studies to regulate and control food intake and physical activity, in order to rule these variables out as contributing to fat loss (those who inadvertently did more physical activity, like walking more total steps, are likely to have lost more fat than those who didn’t).
It’s also worth keeping in mind that the trial participants were both mildly obese and the average participant age was 50, meaning that their response to the intervention may be different to yours if you don’t fall into the same categories. If you already exercise regularly, for example, it may be harder for you to burn fat than someone who is mildly obese and doesn't exercise.
Last but not least, perhaps one of the biggest limitations is that participants wore their weighted vests for eight hours per day. This probably isn't practical for most people, but know that wearing yours consistently will garner the benefits - it may just take you longer to get there.
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