Basic Fitness – 6: Avoiding Old Habits

Posted on June 10, 2018 by JC

Even when you achieve success with health and fitness and get yourself to an ideal weight, it can be easy to lose this success. This can happen for a variety of reasons. The time of the year is a particular factor. If the climate is especially cold in winter, it is all but expected that you will put on more weight as the cold weather will make you reluctant to exercise, if you’re not prevented outright by extremes. Another is to do with festivities, particularly the Christmas Season when it is easy to eat, drink and forget about many of these commitments.

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Basic Fitness – 5: A Good Habit is a Virtue

Posted on June 10, 2018 by JC

The first four steps have really dwelt on what you might be doing wrong. Once you’ve worked through all these it is time to start doing things right. We often think of habits in the negative sense because we associate them automatically with bad habits. For example, picking your nose, chewing your pen (still one of mine), or in more extreme cases, drinking and gambling. But there are good habits too and a good habit is a virtue.
It is important that you don’t just stop doing things but that you start doing things as well. More importantly for this step though is that you keep it up. Going back to the first step is a great place to start here.

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Ad hominem is a valid argument

Posted on June 3, 2018 by JC

I put it to you that in matters of religion and political philosophy – character matters. It matters a lot. It matters so much that the validity of a philosophy or religion should rise or fall based on the character of the person who founded or created it. This is simply because when we consider a philosophy or religion (especially ones making universal claims), then the character of the proponents very much matter. It matters because the effects of such beliefs go beyond a single person or group and depending on their appeal, could easily affect many people for good or for ill.

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No, I guess not.

Posted on May 6, 2018 by JC

arewetogetherAre We Together? by R.C. Sproul
Reformation Trust Publishing, July 28th, 2012

Before I get started I want to make a very direct and honest expression of my own ignorance. I have only been regularly attending church again for a few years and while I grew up in the Anglican Church, I consider my overall knowledge of theology to be quite poor. I have realised quite recently that this goes especially for my understanding of the differences between Protestants and Catholics. I honestly never gave it much thought before as it is easy to see these differences as superficial; such as with the style of worship. In the society we live in, Christians generally have more in common than not which explains the mutual tolerance we now have.

But there are big and very important differences and I and the late author of this book certainly agree on that. This book is written very much for Protestants and at least going from the introduction, the author seems to have Evangelicals joining the Catholic Church in mind. It is a brief but concise look at the major areas of difference with justification by faith alone as the most important area of contention.

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New Wine

Posted on April 1, 2018 by JC

This is just a brief post but one that I thought was worth writing. I have been having on and off dialogues with protestants (one in particular), discussing the major points of difference between us and them. This has been somewhat challenging for me as I am knew to the faith and have found myself saying, “I don’t know”, “I will have to look into that” and generally just honestly admitting the limits of my knowledge quite frequently. The advantage of being Catholic though is I always have Christ’s authority on earth to turn to when I stumble in my knowledge.

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Basic Fitness – 4: Making Small Changes

Posted on March 20, 2018 by JC

The first three steps were in a sense just looking at what is preventing you from making positive changes in your life. In simple terms, look at what you’re doing, stop thinking you need things to change and stop making excuses not to change. I don’t want these to be seen in the negative but it is hard not to. This next step is a more positive and requires you to do something.
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Basic Fitness – 3: Stop Making Excuses  For Yourself And Letting Others Do The Same

Posted on March 12, 2018 by JC

There have been various controversies over the years from negative public reactions to advertisements promoting health. One was a physically fit and attractive Asian woman with tight abs posing in front of her multiple children with a caption, “What’s your excuse?” Another of a model in a bikini simply asked, “Is your beach body ready?” How you react to advertisements like this says a lot more about you than it does about the people who thought them up. Chances are if it is in the negative, it’s because your beach body isn’t ready and you really have no excuse. It’s one thing to complain about the portrayal or sexualisation of women but is that really why you are reacting negatively? Or is it the reality of your own health and appearance that causes you to react negatively? Put simply, if you have a negative mindset, you will not get anywhere. Excuses are simply excuses and while there can certainly be good ones, they’re more often than not just the easy alternative to action.

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Basic Fitness – 2: Don’t Try To Buy Results

Posted on March 4, 2018 by JC

Let me begin this with by going through an experience I had when I first came to live in Japan many years ago.

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10 Steps to Basic Health & Fitness

Posted on February 25, 2018 by JC

This is just a post collecting the links to each chapter of booklet I put together on basic health and fitness through this blog. At this point it has become an abandoned project but I do hope to go over and edit it together in proper form some day. It can still be used as it is.

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A Right To Happiness

Posted on February 24, 2018 by JC

We thus advance towards a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche. And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart, and will – one dare not even add ‘unfortunately’ – be swept away.

C.S. Lewis, We Have No ‘Right To Happiness’ (1963)

This is how Lewis concludes his essay that began discussing a man and woman abandoning their respective spouses to be with each other. This essay was also the last thing he wrote before he died in 1963. What really struck me reading through it again recently was this final part. Considering when it was written, this final line seems prophetic.

This won’t be a long post, I just have a few observations to make based on it.

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