A Heavy Load to Carry

You started to see the weighted vests in your social media feeds. Some algorithmic god had clearly decided you needed help combating the physical ills of middle age, and it was a god you could ignore—but only for so long. Witness one writer's journey through the five stages of vest acceptance.

- BY TATIANA BONCOMPAGNI PHOTOGRAPH BY FLORENCE SULLIVAN

OMORPHO G-VEST WEIGHTED VEST ($289), OMORPHO.COM. OTHER CLOTHES BY MICHAEL KORS COLLECTION

I'll try almost anything in the name of good health.

Forget fancy private clubs and cocktails, the only invitations that truly excite me involve hyperbaric oxygen chambers, IV drips, and infrared heated saunas. But every fitness obsessive has a line she won't cross, and I found mine last summer when I came across a video of Katie Couric and her trainer, Pilates instructor Ashley Patten, walking on a tree-lined street in a pair of weighted vests, expounding the vests' many health benefits, including improved cardiovascular health and bone density. My reaction to the vests was visceral, like a kid asked to carry an ugly lunchbox to school. “Over my dead body,” I whispered at the screen of my phone. But then, like Alhambra bracelets at a Tracy Anderson workout class, weighted vests were everywhere. All over my Instagram. In Central Park. The Hamptons! I had to face the fact: Weighted vests were the wellness world's latest obsession. Could I possibly overcome my deep disdain and learn to love them too?

DENIAL