Are you about to start cutting and looking for a new fat loss hack? Try a weighted vest.

Weighted vests are known as a means to make exercises like pull-ups and dips heavier. This is when your body weight alone is no longer sufficient to create progressive overload. But did you know that you can also wear such a vest ‘normally’ in everyday life? Namely as a means to realize fat loss?

Research

A Swedish study from 2020 shows what that weight vest yields in fat loss. The study involved 69 obese subjects. They wore a weight vest for at least 8 hours a day for 3 weeks. During the experiment, the subjects did not change their lifestyle.

The Swedes divided their subjects into two groups. One group wore a weighted vest with only 1 percent of their body weight (low load). The other wore a weighted vest with 11 percent of their body weight (high load).

The result: the low load group hardly recorded any additional fat loss. In the high load group, on the other hand, a significant fat loss was observed, namely one and a half to two kilos. Not surprising, after all: the heavier you are, the more calories your body burns.

The Swedes did not find any effects on muscle mass, but strength training was not included in the study.

Walking

Now we can imagine that you can’t walk around with such a vest all day. In our opinion, a weighted vest is especially useful when combined with one of the best forms of cardio: walking.

The only downside to walking is that you burn calories relatively slowly. If you walk while wearing a weighted vest, you burn significantly more calories without having to exert yourself excessively.