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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v05n02)
Beats from a Broad Ripple Rat - by Lisa Battiston
posted: Jan. 18, 2008

Beats from a Broad Ripple Rat header

So my new year's resolution was somewhat broad this year. It included a basic bettering of myself, whatever that might entail. Basically, there's this little pocket of fat below my chin that sneaks up only when pictures are taken, completely screwing up any potential new MySpace default photos (ha!). And, while my friends tell me I'm the only one who notices it, I think my arms are fat. Blah blah blah, I could go on, but I'll spare you the details of my not-up-to-par body image that I somehow managed to acquire during my 23 years of life.
But, when it comes to things like that, I'm normally pretty lazy, rather opting to just complain so someone can tell me, no no, Lisa, you look fine. And yeah, that helps for a second, until I step out of the shower completely nude, take a good look at myself in the mirror and realize that, yes, I have gained a little chub-a-lub.
So I traced back my weight gain. It came along when I started drinking in my beloved London when I was 20. Oh, dear booze, you are oh-so-fun but oh-so-fattening. I didn't realize exactly how fattening until I was registering voters at Black Expo a few months back with a friend of mine. While walking around to sign people up, my friend and I stopped at this health booth that essentially told us a shot of liquor had 100 calories in it. I don't know if this is actually true, but let's assume it is. I frequent the bars I do in the great Ripple and elsewhere for their cheap, heavy-handed beverages. My staple well vodka and Coke will normally have anywhere between two and four shots of alcohol (depending on the bartender), compacted with whatever calories are in Coke. Yeah, you do the math. I mean, I was packing away a significant amount of calories when I went out several times a week on top of whatever I ate during the day. Putting it into perspective like that, I looked friggin' phenomenal for consuming that many calories and looking the way I do. Sure, I complain about my weight, but I'm not obese by any stretch of the word.
So. What to do, hm? Well! I resolved to cut out drinking for a while. Y'know, just to see what happens. (Beyond that, there were various other reasons, like getting tired of waking up feeling like an old, hung-over banana peel in the morning, like spending too much money, etc. etc.) It's been a little over two weeks now. Congratulations me. So if you haven't seen me out as much or if you haven't heard the latest Drunk Lisa story - that's why. I've also become semi-obsessed with these "You're a savvy, 20-30-something, working girl living in the city and this is how you should live!" self-help books. They're usually dumb. Sometimes there's a gleam of something interesting in them, though - new ways to budget money or fun new recipes or how to decorate frugally or whatever. My Floridian friend, Nicole, recommended this book Skinny Bitch to me - a book marketed as "a no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous!" Insert some kind of flamboyant hand gesture in there anywhere you want.
Being a snobby, former-English major book-nerd, I don't normally read books off of any Bestseller's lists, but I bought the book in an airport over the weekend and read it on my flight. It helped me recognize I was making a good decision for myself within the first chapter alone, telling me that alcohol "raises the level of hydrochloric acid in your stomach, wreaking havoc on the digestive process. . . Some alcohol (and non-organic wines) still contains urethane, a cancer-causing chemical. To boot, both beer and alcohol jack up your blood-sugar levels." I had no idea. (Look! I learned something new!)
Other friends of mine have just said, "Hey! Just order vodka and diet! That's what I do!" But, citing my new self-help book, "When methyl alcohol, a component of aspartame (the artificial sweetener in most diet sodas), enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde." Right - gross. The book goes on to bash all of the other artificial sweeteners in diet sodas like Splenda, which contains sucralose. Sucralose contains small amounts of "heavy metals, methanol, and arsenic." Also gross. Arsenic? Don't you poison rats with that? Now, look. I'm not tryin' to rain on anyone's parade here. I like to drink just as much as the next person (go look at those aforementioned MySpace photos - yikes). I'm sure I'll be caught at the Alley Cat at some point with one or two or five too many. I honestly do like to drink - really, for truly. But not every weekend, and certainly not multiple times a week.
My new self-help book also told me to quit smoking. Ahem.
One vice at a time, thank you.



lisa@broadripplegazette.com
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