Weighted Vest: I got one on
Amazon a couple of months ago. When I received it in the height of winter, snow, and ice I didn't wear it unless I knew I was going on a route without ice. Even though I recently lost about 8lbs it mostly dropped off from my hips/thighs so wearing that weight up on my shoulders took some getting used to. I love jumping into things, but I do recommend taking it slow as you get used to the weight. Now that it's Spring I am wearing it on almost every walk, and I'm seeing women around town wearing one too. I heard on the Jordan Syatt podcast that he thinks it's the most fantastic "fad" that has come along lately. So maybe a fad, but has lots of benefits.
My vest is 8lbs. I'm currently 135lbs, but about 100 days ago at the WDW Marathon I was 146lbs. I'm tracking macros, eating less overall and less desserts to loose the weight. I'm running about twice a week and strength training with "heavy" weights 5 times a week, plus walking daily for at least a half hour. The tracking app I'm using is estimating that my daily expenditure is going up and it's allowing me more daily calories while feeling like my muscles are getting more defined. I was feeling kind of sluggish this morning after testing and getting a new squat PR of 152lbs, so I almost didn't wear the weighted vest today, but then I thought of how it's probably helping to increase my expenditure so I put it on!
- Ok, all that to say, the standard recommendation is to start with 10% of bodyweight, but I think the size (inches) of the vest is more important. I really didn't want a loose weighted vest. I saw all these tiny, young, woman on
YouTube wearing the 12lb vest and it was hanging off of them! I thought there would be no way I could walk, and certainly not run with the vest flopping around. So even though 8lbs was less than recommended, it's the one that the size of the vest worked best for my bust measurement.
I thought I would need to RWR with the vest, but I tried jogging for the first time this week and I did a 5k wearing it and only walked on the uphills. I could feel that my vertical oscillation was lower than normal; I knew I wasn't bouncing off the ground in the same way I normally did.
April 2025: Running Activities: 9
Distance: 37.70 miles
Time: 7:25:45. This included one 15k, one 5k with weighted vest, seven 5ks.
Looking forward to May, I think I'm going to plan for about three weekly 5ks instead of the 2 per week I did last month.
) I have two 5Ks coming up next month, so hopefully things start coming together soon!
