Pre-Move Day 1: Pre-move Stress

Progress reportProgress report

Moving is very stressful!

Moving Truck

Moving Truck

Last night, while I was in the midst of packing up my stuff to relocate households, I realized I am significantly stressed.  It amazes me how much crap I can accumulate in just two years.  I moved to Texas two years ago and everything fit in my car and the back fo an F250 truck.  Moving back to Georgia will require a moving truck (the one the right is the size I rented but that is not Texas).  As I sit down to have breakfast, I find myself reaching for my comfort foods.  The stress is there and you can feel it.  The natural thing is to reach those foods make you feel better and reduce your stress.  There is nothing wrong with this feeling so avoid the feelings of guilt and regret.   These negative emotions will lead you to eat more.  

It’s well known that weight and overall health can contribute to anxiety, but so can life changes.  In fact, changes at work and home can have a huge impact on your stress and anxiety levels.  Overeating and inactivity are two of the most common mistakes people make in response to anxiety.  You should continue to exercise because exercise reduces muscle tension, releases neurotransmitters that boost mood, burn away stress hormone, help your body function properly, and improves sleep.  All of these will help you adapt better to stressful stimuli.  Those that don’t exercise become more prone to developing anxiety and having weight management issues.

Sure, anxiety and stress can cause weight loss.  The concept of anxiety causing weight loss is very well documented, but there are some key factors that must happen for anxiety to cause weight loss.  Weight changes are caused by lifestyle modifications.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about weight loss or weight gain it takes a change in your daily habits to cause a modification in your way.  These lifestyle changes result in an increase or decrease in calories available and thus causing a weight loss or weight gain.  In the case of weight loss, anxiety results in a decrease in eating. Not everyone who has anxiety has a decrease in appetite.  Some of us develop an insatiable appetite caused by the anxiety that results in us to overeat comfort foods that help resolve some of the anxiety symptoms.  Moving can cause either weight loss or weight gain depending on your individual response to the stressful stimuli.  

Despite all the stress in my transition and my plans to move.  I have maintained my weight fairly well over the past two weeks.  I could have thrown hazard to the wind and just “taken a break” for the move.  I deserve more and will not give up on my success like that.  I weighed 206 pounds 2 weeks ago and despite life’s best attempts to derail my success, I weight 206.7 today.  I plan to write an article that will highlight the methods I used to reduce my stress during this move.  I will take careful notes, take some pictures, and discuss these methods in a future article.  So as I pack things up and prepare to relocate, I will use the stressful and negative energy to document how I kept my stress level down and avoided the temptation to turn to my comfort foods and to avoid exercise.

The bottom line:  Stress can cause both weight loss and weight gain.  This assignment has been the most stressful and rewarding job in my career.  The move may be more stressful than the assignment.  There are a lot of parts that have to fit together perfectly to be successful. you would think after 20 years in the military that moving would become second nature, but it has not.  I am very careful to ensure that I monitor my stress and eating habits to watch for and reduce my stressors.  This move marks the end of my two-year assignment in Texas.  Two years ago, I made a decision to change my life and become more healthy.  Last year, my weight has been relatively stable at plus or minus 10 of 200 pounds.   It is hard to believe that I have been writing this website for nearly two years.  

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About the Author

ChuckH
I am a family physician who has served in the US Army. In 2016, I found myself overweight, out of shape, and unhealthy, so I made a change to improve my health. This blog is the chronology of my path to better health and what I have learned along the way.

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