[Case Study] Using a Weight Vest to Increase NEAT

[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. 

[00:00:05] Josh Kennedy: Today's topic is a case study using a weight vest to increase neat. James is currently recording this podcast wearing a weight vest, so if you are listening, watching on YouTube, you will be able to see that. First of all, James, how are you feeling so far?

[00:00:21] Josh Kennedy: We'll go into the details of what and why we're doing this in a moment, but just, it's been about a week now. How are you doing so far? 

[00:00:27] James Breese: Well, it's quite nostalgic, actually. It's like me being back in the police with my stab vest on. It's, uh, it's been a

[00:00:35] James Breese: Yeah, you I literally have. I put my hands in between here. I've reached for my radio and I was talking to you and Andrew the other week, so it's, uh, it's quite nostalgic. But week in, and it's, it's interesting, it's an interesting study. It's not just from me, obviously, we'll, I'll let you explain the study, but it's, it's been intriguing.

[00:00:52] James Breese: And I think, let's get to the, the facts of the matter, is I've dropped 1. 5 kilos in a week. And. I'm [00:01:00] feeling good, is the honest answer. So it's, uh, it's not too bad at all. So, uh, give an introduction first and say what it's all about and then I can dive into specifics after. 

[00:01:09] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, so, so the idea of this came, I was watching a video on YouTube about high energy flux diets from a guy called, we both follow, called Ryan Humberston.

[00:01:20] Josh Kennedy: Um, and it's not something I'd ever particularly heard of. And I was like, oh, this is, this is interesting. And he quoted this study. Uh, a trainer called Eric Lee Salazar, who is a pro bodybuilder, some of you may have heard of him, uh, used weighted apparel during his contest prep to, you know, try and drop, basically to try and drop weight.

[00:01:41] Josh Kennedy: efficiently, quickly and efficiently without losing muscle mass and without having to go into a ridiculous deficit like he would normally have to go to. Cause obviously like, you know, bodybuilders in order to get lean have to significantly drop their calories. So it was an experiment to keep his neat.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] Josh Kennedy: And we'll talk about NEET in a second, if you don't know what that is. Um, but have a high energy flux diet. So, gosh, we're not going to go too deep into the science here, because that's not what this is about. It's more of a discussion. Usually, you'd have a low energy flux diet, which means going to a big...

[00:02:16] Josh Kennedy: deficit. High energy flux diet is about keeping your calories higher, but essentially increasing your, your NEAT and your energy output. Would you say that's the best way to explain 

[00:02:27] James Breese: it, James? From what I understand, yes. But again, it's one of those ones where like, that's, that's really going to the complexities of all this.

[00:02:34] James Breese: Whereas I like to keep things simple, stupid, just my little piece on your brain. That's it. Well, it's 

[00:02:39] Josh Kennedy: usually, you know, you'd, you'd want a, let's say 500 calorie deficit. So rather than creating that 500 calorie deficit by, uh, cutting down your food, try to increase your. energy expenditure by 500 calories instead, or around that.

[00:02:57] Josh Kennedy: There'll be a little bit of give and take, some from [00:03:00] diet, some from exercise and neat, but essentially that's that's the idea. So you keep your nutrition, your calories higher, but expend more energy. Um, so that's what, uh, that's what we're doing with the, uh, with the weight vest. So initially. Uh, in this study, the guy went into a small deficit, lost a bit of weight, and then after four weeks he started wearing a weight vest, and he added, I think it was 12 pounds, to basically take him back to his original starting weight.

[00:03:29] Josh Kennedy: So it's kind of trying to trick your metabolism, um, essentially. Again, would you, uh, would you agree, James? Yeah, I 

[00:03:36] James Breese: think that's in very simple layman terms, yeah, absolutely. I think what we need is some really fancy ass scientists to come explain this properly to us. Because we don't want to butcher this whole study at all, but...

[00:03:47] James Breese: That's the enough. That's the premise is basically what it is It's like keep adding weight and as he loses weight to keep adding weight to replenish that weight. He's lost 

[00:03:55] Josh Kennedy: exactly I say to keep him around his original starting weight because again It's not something I'd [00:04:00] thought about because obviously we recommend all our clients do at least 7, 000 ideally 10, 000 steps a day But if you're doing 10, 000 steps a day and you weigh 180 pounds if you lose 15 pounds You're suddenly 165 pounds and you still do those 10, 000 steps a day You're not going to burn as much energy doing those steps.

[00:04:19] Josh Kennedy: So therefore you have to drop your calories, drop your calories, drop your calories, and that's where you start getting into, uh, getting into problems. So you've got to increase your energy output. You've got to increase your NEAT. So that's what this is all about. We're trying to keep James's calories high, artificially higher, um, as he drops weight.

[00:04:36] Josh Kennedy: And as you say, you've dropped about 1. 5. kilos so far. Uh, so we had to put another kilo in your vest today, didn't we? 

[00:04:43] James Breese: Exactly. That was another kilo going in today. And that's, that's the interesting thing. So on day one, after wearing the vest, I had it on for about six and a half hours in total, and it has its practicalities.

[00:04:52] James Breese: It's quite useful because if I'm at home working at a standup desk, it works quite well, no one's around, I can, I can wear [00:05:00] it. I can imagine though, if people wear this at the office, they would look self conscious and they wouldn't do it. Because he just looked weird, basically. How so, and I understand also the idea if you walk to the shops in this weight vest, you get lots of funny looks because it looks like a stab vest.

[00:05:16] James Breese: It looks like a bulletproof vest. It looks like you're going to war or expecting to be shot at any given time. So I totally understand that aspect. So it's not maybe practical in those terms. But during the day, I don't know, I didn't notice it. Except for the first day where I could feel the weight on my shoulders.

[00:05:30] James Breese: Like, ooh, I'm a bit tight. That's quite heavy. Over the course of the week, your body just adapts to it, and I was like, oh, that's fairly normal. When you take it off, you feel really light, really bouncy. I've noticed it today, because I've added the extra kilo in today, and even though it's just that one kilo, pounds, for those who don't know, it's made a difference.

[00:05:47] James Breese: I can feel it on my shoulders, like, oh, it's gone heavy again, just exactly it was last week. So yeah, it's, it's an interesting... You know, point of view is, it's an interesting Practicality issues to behind it, I [00:06:00] think. I think you have to take it on and off quite a lot if you're trying to do certain things.

[00:06:04] James Breese: I tried doing a yoga session with it on in and that just failed miserably, so I wouldn't recommend doing that to anybody. But you do have to take it on and off and you have to be aware of your surroundings, what you're doing, and what I've tend to done is I've gone, I've worn it during the day and then at night time I go for a 30 minute walk at night time when it's dark.

[00:06:19] James Breese: I put a jacket over the top of it. And it's just easy to do for a 30 minute walk to boost and get those steps at the end of the day, but All in all, it's fairly relatively easy and straight going, but I wouldn't recommend it to people who are new. I think people, you have to have a level of training behind you, I think.

[00:06:35] James Breese: That's a, that's a really important factor, and I think you have to have a level of strength behind you as well. I think, to support it, because it's a long period of time. And also maybe increase, I'm fairly used to wearing, um, like taking, taking ruck packs up mountains, and carrying stuff all the time, so I'm fairly used to that, so my body's adapted quite well.

[00:06:52] James Breese: But I can imagine if you're not used to that, Then I'd definitely do it slowly, and I wouldn't start with five kilos like I started with. I'd maybe start [00:07:00] with one kilo. 

[00:07:01] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, so As, as, uh, Eric Salazar did in his experiment, you are in an initial deficit, um, but we're going to keep that small as we, as you drop weight, we're not going to, you know, have to make that deficit lower and lower and lower.

[00:07:18] Josh Kennedy: We're going to, the idea is to keep that deficit about the same. Um, so essentially you will be eating more for your body weight, um, but increase the weight vest to sort of, to keep you at your original starting weight and, and see what happens. That's the premise of what we're doing. Yeah, 

[00:07:34] James Breese: exactly. So we, to be, to be exact, for those who want to know, I've dropped my calories down to 2025 calories per day, which is 400 calorie deficit for me.

[00:07:42] James Breese: So we've followed our principles of dieting. So we like to use the 68. 79, uh, sorry, 67, 78 and 79 percent off calories. 89%. Rule. There you go, same thing. But we like to use those, those rules as how we follow. So we've followed our principles, but applying this strategy on top of it [00:08:00] to see how it works. It's all about systems and your strategies.

[00:08:03] James Breese: So we're just adding this layer of complexity to it to see how it impacts us. So far, like I said, it's only been a week and anything can happen in the week, but I've remained consistently under calories. Uh, to where I need to get to. I've trained consistently, and I've eaten fairly well too. So it's, everything's fallen to the mix.

[00:08:19] James Breese: Now, one and a half kilos is quite a lot, if I'm, if we're being honest. So it may be a little bit too much, but we're going to see how it goes at the end of this week to see what happens over two weeks to then maybe adjust it. Maybe I need to increase my calories a little bit more. to offset this because we don't want to go too fast in terms of weight loss because it's then I'm losing muscle mass then too 

[00:08:39] Josh Kennedy: fast.

[00:08:40] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. So we want to preserve that was that was the idea about the original experiment about trying to preserve muscle mass as well. Um, you know, the use of the weight vest should help preserve your muscle mass and What we'd usually do, we'd go back to maintenance obviously, which we will do with you, but then we'd recalculate your deficit based on your current body weight.[00:09:00] 

[00:09:00] Josh Kennedy: So that's why I say your calories would drop even lower, but we are not going to do that. We're going to recalculate them. Well, you'll just be back to basically what you're on now. Even as your weight drops, you will not go below these calories. You might say, as you say, because you've dropped a significant amount, we might actually make your deficit even smaller.

[00:09:18] Josh Kennedy: Which means you can have more food, mate. Won't that be great? 

[00:09:20] James Breese: Yes, I hope so. That would be great. That's the worst thing, because when you go into a deficit and you want to get to a certain level... Like, the lower you go, and you have to go to that schedule in most circumstances, it's miserable. You're tired, you're brain foggy, you're irritable, you can't train properly, it's not a nice place.

[00:09:35] James Breese: Fat loss is horrible. Fat loss is horrendous when you're trying to do this. And for those who want to know why am I doing this, well, I'm going to the World Cup in South Africa. In February, I want to be at the best performance level weight and I can be, which means getting my body fat percentage down towards 10%.

[00:09:51] James Breese: So that's, that's where we're going towards. That's what I'm trying to work towards as soon as possible. So I can then maintain it and train as hard as possible, ready for the World Cup. So I'm not going in in a [00:10:00] deficit. I'm going in feeling great. So that's, that's what we're doing. That's what we're working towards.

[00:10:04] James Breese: And we're just sharing. We read this. We thought, wow, this is interesting. It's maybe something I can do at home. I'm trying it out and here you go guys. I'm just sharing with you all now. So if you see me on with a weight vest over the next few weeks doing podcasts, that's why. 

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[00:10:54] Josh Kennedy: The other interesting thing, again, this, I'm gonna not try to get too science y because I don't fully understand it all [00:11:00] myself, the...

[00:11:02] Josh Kennedy: Something called Gravitostat. Uh, Gravitostat, Gravitostat. 100 percent sure how you pronounce it. But again, this is something I'd never heard of, never come across until I read this article. I think it has been confirmed in humans, although they've done most experiments on mice. Um, just want to point that out.

[00:11:21] Josh Kennedy: So essentially, it's a body weight regulating, I think it's a hormone, I think, uh, in your bones, essentially. Um, and they, And it gets triggered when, when you, if you get too heavy, your body is supposed to, your bones, this gravitasite is supposed to notice that you're too heavy and, you know, essentially help you lose weight.

[00:11:41] Josh Kennedy: But the, the reason they don't think it's triggered in humans as much is because we sit a lot. So our bones don't carry. I'll wait as much anymore, which I, you know, chairs take our weight instead. So that is part of the part of the thing about wearing the weight vest and standing up a lot and obviously walking around a lot is to [00:12:00] trigger this, um, gravitas stats, uh, to, to help regulate your weight.

[00:12:05] Josh Kennedy: I can't, I can't really go, go any more into it than that. That's all I know right now. James, you got anything to add to that? I 

[00:12:12] James Breese: can't, I can't, I can't even, I can't even help you out there because I've known nothing, nothing about it until you read that study, so I can't really comment at all. 

[00:12:18] Josh Kennedy: It's just really interesting that you're, you know, as far as we understand it, your bones have a body weight regulation, again, I'm going to call it a hormone, don't know whether it is, uh, within them and it, which is triggered when you, uh, when they, when they, Feel weight on them.

[00:12:34] Josh Kennedy: And as I say, because, because we sit a lot, uh, these, these hormones are not being triggered in 

[00:12:40] James Breese: people. I say, who knows? We have no idea. I can't comment on that. I don't really know enough about it. This is, like I said, I think we're becoming like more of a breaking news type thing. Just to, to question and ask people in the community to tell us to know more about it.

[00:12:50] James Breese: Because we, we, we want to learn about it. That's, that's the key thing here. We want to learn more about it, see how it applies. But I think the other thing I've got to mention is like, don't do this if you're sitting down behind a desk all day. [00:13:00] That's definitely not something that's going to work for you.

[00:13:01] James Breese: I'm standing up all day, and I prefer it at a stand up desk. That's how I work, and that's how I operate. Like, sitting at a desk just kills me, quite literally. My soul, my arse, my everything, right? It just literally just destroys me. So, you know, like, it's, it's just everything. So, like, yeah, just bear that in mind.

[00:13:16] James Breese: Make sure you're doing this standing up. Don't just add more load to you sitting down, that's just silly. 

[00:13:21] Josh Kennedy: Exactly, and it won't, it won't have the same desired effect, uh, will it, as far as we understand this gravitastat hormone, it won't have the same desired effect. The other thing is, we're gonna have to come back and do another episode about this, because the question I posed to you before we started recording is, how do we reverse you out of this?

[00:13:37] Josh Kennedy: That's a problem, because just taking the weight vest off will not be a great idea. So I thought, okay, well, do we potentially reverse dieting maybe, but also take a kilo out of the weight vest each week and, you know, slowly try and gently trick the metabolism, you know, without giving it a shock. 

[00:13:58] James Breese: What if we reverse back [00:14:00] up normally with the same weight in the vest?

[00:14:02] James Breese: And then when I get back to maintenance, I then take a kilo off each week. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. So I'm then doing it afterwards. So it's taking the weight off after that. So you reverse back up. Yeah, keeping 

[00:14:12] Josh Kennedy: your calories at maintenance, taking the weight vest off gradually, but not putting on any weight.

[00:14:18] Josh Kennedy: Obviously, that's, uh. That's going to be the idea. We'll have to, we'll have to see. 

[00:14:21] James Breese: Exactly. Stay tuned, people. Stay tuned. Indeed. 

[00:14:24] Josh Kennedy: Uh, that is it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you, uh, feel free to go out and research what on earth gravitas that is and let me know. Uh, more scientific brains than me might, uh, have a little bit of a better explanation.

[00:14:37] Josh Kennedy: Uh, but please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you want to find out more about our training system, go to strengthmatters. com forward slash system and get our free ebook.