The Healthy 5: Unintentional Health Formation

Lisa Goins
Nov 4
8 min read

Welcome to GoinStrong Health Formation's Blog!

September 2025

"Motivation gets you started - Habits keep you going."

Hi there!

As a Health Coach, I try to educate and inspire people toward a healthy lifestyle. As a Spiritual Director I help people become more aware of God's presence and movement in their lives. In this space, I aim to integrate both.

There is so much confusion out there about Health. I hope some of what we talk about here will clear things up and help you move your health forward.

Welcome to GoinStrong Health Formation.

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Let's jump into today's topics!

Unintentional Health Formation

What is Unintentionally Forming You?

I have enjoyed the teaching of John Mark Comer and Dallas Willard around spiritual formation. When I reflect on how formation teaching has impacted my spiritual life, I become aware of other parts of my life that are being formed, either intentionally or unintentionally, and health is one of those areas.

Formation lands in the spiritual conversation most of the time, but it is not just a spiritual thing; it is a human thing. We are being formed, and most of our formation is unintentional… It just happens. For example, the Standard American Diet has formed us over many years into a culture that doesn’t think twice about driving our car up to a small window, paying 15 bucks, and driving away with 2000 calories of beef, bread, and fries. We do this mindlessly because we don’t plan, we are busy, and, well, it’s what we've always done. We have been unintentionally formed to eat fast food for decades. It's on every street, in every city, available at every hour in America. It’s easy! It’s cheap! It forms our health and feeds our addiction with each greasy bite.

Why do we succumb to fast food, sugar, and a host of other forces? The answer is complex, but formation plays an insidious role. Our appetites, our relationships, our environment, and the stories we tell ourselves are all taking us in a direction.

So, what is unintentionally forming you? What direction are you going? Is it where you want to go? It takes intention and courage to honestly look at our lives and discover how we are being formed. It is the first step toward change. I can become aware of what’s forming me, make a new choice, and then live into it each day as it becomes a habit and reforms me.

This has been true for me with exercise, food, sleep, and other healthy practices. It came with painful awareness around what I was already doing and how hard it was to stop. But as I made small, intentional, incremental changes, they began to compound over time, and my health got better. Honestly, sometimes I get tired of thinking about my health journey, but then I remind myself that where I am headed is far better than where I've been.

I have created a ‘Health Formation Inventory’ so we can look at what is already going on and begin to make healthy changes. In this process, some things have become permanent habits for me, and others I'm still struggling to install. It’s the ongoing process of transformation and change, and it takes time. Be patient with yourself. It all starts with one step of awareness.

Aging with Health

Health-Span Vs. Life-Span

We all have a life span, the number of days we are going to live. We also have a health span, which is how long we’re going to be healthy.

I like the idea of a health span, but it isn't scientifically verifiable. Did the vitamins and supplements I have taken over the last decade impact my health span? It's hard to know. However, some variables have research behind them, and as we implement them, they will likely have a positive impact on our health span.

Movement: We know that our bodies are created to move. If we sit at a computer all day, it will have a negative impact on our physical and mental health. The 7 benefits of exercise, written by Mayo Clinic, might inspire you to make a movement change if you are stuck in a sedentary lifestyle. Exercise helps with anxiety and depression and has been called the new "anti-depressant." It's hard to find any part of our health that doesn't improve with regular movement.

Sugar: We know that Sugar feeds cancer and destroys our cells. If we eat a diet high in sugar and mainly processed sugar, our health will decline over time, and we are likely to be overweight and have heart disease and/or diabetes. So, how do we manage sugar, especially added sugars? The Sweet Dangers of Sugar, an article published by Harvard Medical School, highlights the dangers of sugar but also gives some ideas about how to manage sugar in our diets.

Stress: We know that stress is a silent killer, and it impacts our health on almost every level. Stress is how we respond to situations in our lives. What is stressful to one person might be a relief to another person in the same situation. As we receive information in our daily lives, how we respond or don't respond determines our level of stress.

If you are highly stressed, don't miss this 7-minute stress workout. It's got all the components of de-stressing: Breathing, shake it off, pound a pillow, dance, sway from side to side (yes, it's a thing!).

The older I get, the more I think about my health span. God settled our life span before we were born. But our health span is a bit of a mystery, an invitation for us to steward our health in the face of many unknowns.

Weight Loss

Comfort Food

What is your definition of comfort food? When I say the words comfort food, what visions start dancing in your head? Sugarplums? Donuts? Chips? Cupcakes? Nachos? Meatloaf and mashed potatoes? It is different for each one of us, but comfort food is part of our own individual food pyramid, a protected category that nobody better mess with!

Throughout our lives, we become really attached to certain foods. We remember how we felt when we ate those foods in the past, and we want to feel that way again. Foods have associations. If your Mom bought you ice cream when you skinned your knee, you will likely want sugar when you are hurting. If your family solved their conflicts by going out to eat, you will likely lean toward overeating when you're upset, and there will be restaurants and foods associated with those memories. We have been formed (to borrow from the discussion above) by example, history, taste, and feeling, to love certain foods. We don't question them, and we do not want to be questioned about them.

I was an Oreo cookie girl. I would buy them and binge on them, especially on vacation. What about Girl Scout Thin Mints? I was crazy about those, too, and likely to become highly agitated with the Girl Scouts if they ran out before I got 15 boxes to put in my freezer (we all know they are better frozen😋). We accept these foods and they become part of our subconscious menu plan, on hold for a crisis moment or a celebration. They feel like home to us. I bet your comfort food is coming to mind as you read this, and your mouth is probably watering by now. Comfort food, associated with something good in our lives, will always be on 'silent reserve.' If we are on a weight loss plan, we are always waiting to 'get back home' to eating the cupcakes or chips, back to what feels good and normal.

People who start my program often comment in the beginning, "Will I always have to eat this way?" The mindset shift from the comfort food we know to the comfort food we choose is a transformation worth pursuing. Have you ever thought about redefining your version of comfort food? What new foods feel like comfort today? It never fails, at the end of my 10-week program, someone will say, "I don't even want the cupcakes anymore. I know how they will feel in my body, and I don't want to feel that sluggish, sleepy feeling. I've discovered new foods that I love, which give me energy and help me maintain my ideal weight. I like how I feel now, and I've come too far to go back." This mindset shift takes time, but once you've made the curve, you will not be trying to "get back home." You have moved and you ARE home, and your new home is beautifully decorated with all the new foods you love. Once you make this move away from historical comfort food and move into your new normal, maintaining your ideal weight becomes much easier.

Rebecca's Story of Renewal

Rebecca's Before & After

Looking back at this healing journey, it is easy to see where God has shown up for me. It wasn’t so easy at first.

A quick little history: I have struggled with anxiety and a binge eating disorder for all of my adult life. Come to find out, all of that was rooted in my recently diagnosed ADHD. *This is important for later*

I have done all of the weight loss programs and always wondered “if I could just…. Do this program, not eat that food, eat a specific food, etc,” looking for answers/results and not getting any that stuck around long term. After struggling with my weight for years and having 3 miscarriages, I was at an all-time low, emotionally and spiritually. I had put up walls to protect myself, and they needed to come down. Then, at just the right moment, God sent me a coworker turned friend who was in the midst of her weight loss journey and introduced me to Lisa.

I got the information the day before the 10-week class started. I felt this push to just do it, and I listened. I felt compelled to join, but I was scared. What if I didn’t succeed? What if I couldn’t keep it off this time? What if I wasn’t enough? Am I worthy of prioritizing and asking others for what I need instead of just constantly taking care of everyone else? Scary, scary stuff.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Lisa was teaching me how to be at peace with my body, to learn from it, glean information from my “research project.”

I learned a lot about how my body responded to different foods and was undoing years of “diet culture” and all the propaganda about how you should change your body. I had never thought of my body this way before, just something that was never quite good enough.

I knew I needed someone in my corner who would not just support my weight loss goals but also the emotional side of it. I still tied many of my emotions to food. Turns out food is a really good and fast dopamine hit when you have ADHD and your brain can’t get enough of that feel-good dopamine.

God connected me to Lisa, and she helped me discover other ways to support my brain instead of looking to food. At times, it was scary to be vulnerable and let God guide my transformation. I like to be in control and see my choices have a direct impact on my progress. I like linear data, and weight loss is anything but linear.

Day after day, I did my check-in with Lisa, but started to express what I was struggling with on that particular day. Lisa encouraged me and prayed for me. She guided me and reminded me I wasn’t doing this alone and that through Him we can do hard things.

Today I am 85 pounds down and maintaining. Sometimes it is hard to see and feel God’s presence in the midst of the struggle.

This I know: God is with you in all that you do and will never forsake you. Your worth comes from God and not in your progress.

This I know: eating off plan for a meal does not completely throw all your progress out the window or make you less successful. I was able to get back on track the next day, which in the past would have been a bigger struggle than it was this time.