Weight Gain Eye Opener
Recently one of my sons asked me about the benefits of wearing a weighted vest while going for walks. My son is very disciplined about consistently exercising so my initial response was, “Do you really need to add more things to working out?” He agreed and decided to pass on the weighted vest workout
When reading Michael Easter’s excellent book, “The Comfort Crisis,” he has a chapter on weighted vests. The military uses weighted vests to prepare soldiers to be able to carry all of their heavy gear. A former career soldier, 42-year-old patient, Matthias, shared with me that the vests are excellent for building strength and endurance. “Any negatives to wearing the vest,” I asked him. He said, “Yes, it hurts.” Matthias trained with eighty pounds in his vest. That’s amazing.
I purchased a forty-pound vest that can be adjusted in increments of four pounds. I started out with four weights in mine equaling 16 pounds and proceeded to walk the hills in my neighborhood. It’s an excellent workout, hard enough to challenge me, but not a killer of a workout. A recent online article cautioned against going too heavy as to not aggravate arthritis in the hips and knees. You would also never want to jog or run in a weighted vest, as if I even could.
There is a second benefit to the weighted vest I wasn’t expecting. Walking with the additional 16 pounds gave me an awareness of how weight gain takes its toll on a body. Since weight gain is often gradual, there can be a lack of awareness of its impact on the body. Even though the extra 16 pounds of the vest increases my strength and endurance, I need to rest after a two-mile walk. Our habits, such as eating too much food or the wrong foods, come on gradually. Since we appear to adapt to the weight gain, we assume our body “comfortably” accepts the extra pounds. The beauty of the weighted vest is you will hear, very clearly, your body saying “I don’t like this extra weight.”
So many people with arthritic knees would improve by losing weight. Not easy, but so worth it. A patient recently asked about a special treatment for arthritic knees. The treatment was extremely expensive and not guaranteed to work. This patient is a smart, successful man and when quizzed about the best thing he could do for his arthritic knees he responded, “lose weight.”
You can accomplish anything you put your mind to. Create freedom in your life with consistent, persistent discipline. Bet on yourself because others might be watching you be a role model.