Confession time: A trip to the bathroom at my house can not be considered successful unless reading material is involved. Now, before you get all judge-y about my bowels, let me reiterate that I have three small children who think nothing of barging into the potty with bread, peanut butter and a knife (a sharp one, naturally) asking me to make them a sandwich. Locking myself in with the porcelain throne – the same one that they firehose with their urine – and a good magazine is as close as I get to a spa treatment. So unless a private masseusse suddenly befriends me (which did happen on one occassion amazingly) or the kids take up china painting as a hobby, I’m sticking with my bathroom time.
The problem though is always what to read. I don’t take books in there because, well, most of my books are either loaned to me by the library or friends or are much loved books that I’d like to keep around for a long time, sans e-coli. Not to mention the risk of getting sent to a watery grave in the bathtub, toilet or sink. I don’t do newspapers (isn’t that what the Internet was invented for?) and so that leaves me with magazines. Now, many mags are worth more as toilet paper than toilet reading and I’m a choosy reader, especially if I’m paying for the subscription so generally I stick to subjects I know I love. National Geographic, Money and Outside are perennial favorites but you know that deep in my little heart I love love love fitness magazines. I subscribe to Health, Shape, Self, Fitness and up until my subscription ran out a few month’s ago, Women’s Health. I’ll also read any copy of Men’s Health, Oxygen, and Muscle & Fitness (his or hers!) I can get my sweaty hands on at the gym.
Even though they all basically recycle the same tired articles interspersed with ridiculous exercises featuring non-muscled models in oddly colorblocked workout attire, I still devour them every month. It’s like I can’t rest until I know “How to Lose Those Last 10 Pounds – For Good!” or “How to Work Out Less But Get More Done!” Even though I know the former will just be an article about a 1500 calorie diet combined with regular exercise and the latter will just re-explain the concept of interval training to me for the 7,000th time.
Yeah, it’s October and I’m wearing a bikini but don’t worry, I’ve got a pink cardigan to keep me warm!Every once in a while, when the husband sees me headed to the potty to party with a magazine tucked under my arm, he’ll ask me, “Do you think it’s really helping you to read that stuff?” I think he is referencing the unobtainable and often airbrushed standards of partly clothed beauty that grace the covers. (Side note: It’s always someone in a bikini standing in water. Sometimes, if they’re feeling wild, it’s a woman in a bikini against a blank backdrop. But always the bikini. What cracks me up is how around this time of year they accessorize the bikini with a sweater. Cause, yeah, we girls do that.) And he has a point. Despite reading hundreds of You-Inspired-Me-To-Overhaul-My-Life letters to the editor, I have never once looked at one of those mags and thought “You know? They’re right! I should take Five Simple Shortcuts To Change My Life! Because, good golly, I am worth it.” In fact, I generally feel a little worse about myself after staring at those gilded images. Must workout harder! Must throw out leftover Halloween candy!
And yet I still read them. Actually I think I’m addicted to them. I get a little thrill when they show up in my mailbox and feel more than a bit let down when I turn that last page. So what do I love about them? Well, the research is what I usually tell people but that is often so scantily covered that I imagine that’s like saying you read Cosmo for the recipes. I also like the workout varieties. It’s fun to mix in new stuff when you work out as much as I do although I’ve never gotten a workout out of a magazine that I’d call life changing. They’re often silly and impractical or unoriginal and boring. I’ve definitely gotten some good recipes out of them though.
The ladies over at Jezebel think they are worse than useless, downright soul destroying in fact. For me, they’re better than the traditional lady mags and more interesting than the gossip rags so I suppose in my mind they are the lesser evil. What do you guys think? Do fitness mags help or hinder your health goals? Which (if any) do you subscribe to?
A very funny and courageous post!!
I get Men’s Health, of Cosmo for men as I call it.
I’ve noticed that lately the men on the cover are wearing more clothes. What’s up with that?
I love fitness magazines! I am not a fan of the scantily clad cover model but I am usually inspired by them. I also like to see if they might have a new move that I have never tried. I have a few staples in my lineup that have been taken from fitness magazines.
Jenn
I get Runner’s World, Hers and… the Smithsonian in the mail… Love RW and the Smithsonian. Mixed feelings about Hers.
I buy Shape and Women’s health regularly. I am always excited and then disappointed. i don’t know why I keep getting them. I learn next to nothing from them, always find something I wish I could buy but can’t afford and feel bad about my skin imperfections and flabby tummy. It seems those mags are made people starting out their fitness journey. And please, I want to see some real muscles on those models. Muscle is hot!
Foe.
I might just be grumpy tonight but to me, the only real redeemable part of those magazines is when they show real stories of real women losing weight and getting in shape. all 2 pages. Honestly I’ve found more real inspiration through blogging than any of those magazines.
(that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes succumb…but you asked, so- FOE.)
Well I will have to say, that after I turned 50 this past month, as I am working out and on the tread mill, I say to my 12 yr old, I dont’t remember this thigh looking like this in the summer…. to which she said “you dont want me to tell you what you already know”…wise child I have.. I did just getting done watching the Victoria Secret special and I only wish I once looked like that…
I have yet to find a fitness magazine that doesn’t bore me to death. I am a HUGE fan of Martha Stewart –whew, it really does feel good to get that secret off my chest– anyway, she used to make this mag BluePrint which was more of a lifestyle magazine, it ran for like 6 editions and had great advice for personal development, crafts, recipes and fitness. Martha, I beg you to bring it back!
I LOVE them! We don’t get the ones you mentioned over here, but I read Zest a lot. They do a lot on mental well-being and mood boosting which is actually quite useful, and then I just get a kick out of reading about the latest diets.
But the number of times I’ve bought the same issue twice because the covers/models/bikinis always look the same… GRRRR.
TA x
I’m trying to reduce the number of fitness mags I buy.
Currently I subscribe to Men’s Fitness and I’ll buy Men’s Health at BJ’s every once in a while.
Personally, I’m hoping to get a subscription to the CrossFit Journal for Christmas and then I can get my fitness stuff fix and ditch the MF subscription.
My wife calls MH and MF porn for married guys.
Just came back from a trip to the bathroom (seriously) and took inventory: Triathlete, Minnesota Monthly, Women’s Adventure and Experience Life (and I swear, not because I like to see my own byline, really good substance in there). Another mag I love is Brain Child (www.brainchildmag.com), the magazine for “Thinking Mothers.” I think it would make your “spa” experience all the more enjoyable!
I have a subscription to Fitness, will pick up Shape, Self or Women’s Health on occasion if they look interesting.
I gave up on fashion mags long ago because I thought they were useless and a waste of paper. I then discovered Fitness – this was way back, I think they only came out every 2 months then. Back then I did not actually work out, but I found them way more interesting to read than fashion mags.
After having read Fitness every month for many years now, I agree – there’s never really anything new. But for some reason I still like flipping through it every month. It’s like a security blanket or something.
I got a Self subscription last year for free, so I read that, but I really look forward to my Marie Claire so I can check out the pretty shoes and bags, and the makeup tips that I never try.
I really get thrilled when I get my Runner’s World magazine, but it’s always way too short – but I definitely will renew my subscription. I love the success stories in Self, but there are so few of them that I won’t renew that magazine.
I find Shape and many like that contain too little fitness info for me. My favorite is Muscle & Fitness Hers. I will sometimes pick up Oxygen but that is sometimes too over the top for me. Many of my favorite exercises are from M&F.
I get Self and I remember reading the “Happy weight” article. I am nowhere near my happy weight, and it was depressing to read that and calculate it with the formula they had.
I’ve cut it down to mostly OnFitness and Experience Life. Pick up several yoga magazines from time to time. Have to agree that blogs and web sites have replaced most magazines for info and entertainment.
When I was an au pair, the girls that I took care of learned how to pick the lock of the bathroom. Couldn’t even relax when I was trying to pee because I was trying to be as quick as possible before they’d come barging in!
I don’t subscribe but occassionally I’ll pick up a fitness magazine; every time I travel I stock up on magazines (and I usually get a couple in my stocking at Christmas). I think it’s because I don’t read them religiously that they don’t make me feel bad about myself. They make me laugh at how ridiculous they are but I LOVE magazines. I think BECAUSE of how trashy they are!
I’ll have to look at fitness magazines. Do they have obnoxious perfume ads that make you want to hold your breath? (Actually, I suppose magazines with those ads might be a plus considering the reading location 😉
And is it some law of nature, immutable, written in stone, that as soon as you open a magazine, a horde of subscription cards have to come flying out? That always happens to me.
I’m not a huge fan of fitness magazines, because I once did the math on the recipes vs. the workouts’ caloric burn (or what they claimed it was), and the deficit between the two was staggering.
Also, the fitness models pictured are sometimes skinnier than those in Cosmo, so again, not a fan.
Ah, Charlotte. My sentiments precisely. Even though I know perfectly well that a flick of the glossy page will not reveal the “secret” touted on the cover, I still feel compelled to look *just in case* What if, by some stroke of Zeus, they did manage to come up with something new? Why, then I’d have missed out?!?! Which, when you workout and love fitness as much as I do, simply will not do. The better safe than sorry reason. Secondly, (another disclaimer-I’m trrrrrying not to judge) when one does happen to know a modest amount about fitness/nutrition/yadda/yadda, one might perhaps feel a teensy weensy bit superior to the invisible audience who one imagines actually did not know that third step to holiday happiness or the fourth trick for looking hot in the LBD (stand up straight? no way! really?). Finally, I rarely watch tv, so reading the mags is about my only window into today’s pop culture. A skewed lens I’m sure, but occasionally a funny label or such will present itself.
I like the harder core fitness mags (Hers, Oxygen) a lot more than the lighter variety (Shape, Fitness). If there’s a standard that I have to fail to meet, I’d rather it be one that came from hard work (and good genetics) than one that came mostly from Photoshop and starvation.
I don’t believe for a second that most of those starlets shown actually have a six pack.
I devour issues of Oxygens, Hers, Entertainment Weekly and Cooking Light.
I read oxygen. I like that it’s more hardcore than shape or self- those seem so boring and the tips are oh so obvious. Although, oxygen is full of obnoxious ads with the magic diet pill. Even though the pictures are airbrushed, they are good for motivation especially when pushing yourself to go longer on the treadmill.
It kills me. Almost every issue of a fitness magazine is basically the same information regurgitated in a different way. Eventually they are going to run out of ways to say the same things. I guess there is always a new celebrity that they can cover how they starved themselves to fitness.
That being said, I do enjoy picking up a fitness mag every now and then. I find that I don’t actually ready much though… I just stare at the beutiful people. I think that is their secret to success. They are basically an adult picture book.
On the bad side though, I think fitness magazines are part of the problem. Most of us know how skewed the mainstream view on health and fitness is (thats why our blog communities exist!). Fitness magazines are one of the mouthpeices of that mainstream, money driven fitness model.
The SoG
I used to get Runner’s World, but only because people kept giving me gift subscriptions for Christmas/Birthday. People thought I would appreciate it as I ran a lot of miles. I got really tired of after about 5 years. Every month, I read the same articles.
Now, I just receive “The Week”. It’s a nice, mostly unbiased summary of world news every week. I also love a good trashy Hollywood mag, but I only allow myself to buy them when I’m at the airport about to board a long flight…or I just embarrass my husband by standing in Borders and reading them all for free!
I must admit I also have a love affair for health/fitness magazines. I get Women’s Health, Shape, Runners World, and I used to get the UK’s “Yoga Magazine” but that was courtesy of a relative. I tried to embrace Oxygen, but got really tired of the diet pill ads that riddled it.
My bestfriend gets Cosmo, so we trade off mid-month.
I have subscriptions to Shape and Fitness, and I read them mostly for the fitness moves, hoping I get new ones to bring to class. Not too many, but I hold out hope. I usually end up with a couple pages torn out of each issue.
I used to read all of them, obsessively, every month. I also had an eating disorder. (Ahem.)
Anywho, I will pick one up every once in a while, but I don’t expect to get any new advice. I do subscribe to Yoga Journal, as well as a couple of food mags (ah, food porn!). I also used to read Oxygen and Fitness RX for Women, but got tired of having to slough through all the diet pill ads to get to the articles. (It also depressed me to see all the brand-new ulta-buff moms/seventy-something triathletes/octogenarian ironwomen while I was lucky to get in an hour of working out.)
I’ll admit in my bathrooms right now there is Electronic Gaming Monthly, Wired, My College’s Allumni Magazine, and an old copy of Texas Hunting and Fishing or something like that. I just have no interest in fitness or fashion magazines unless someone gives me their old ones (that’s what the internet is for). We also get everything for free, the fiance likes to collect soda points and redeems them for bathroom reading material.
This is way TMI but I always get REALLY behind on my bathroom reading because, ummm, my innards run like clockwork and I usually use the facilities at work for such extracurricular activities. So I think I’m reading July’s EGM right now. 🙂
The only one I actually like unconditionally is Runner’s World.
The rest of them, I never look at when I’m on an “up” cycle, but want desperately when I’m on a “down” cycle.
In other words, I’m only really tempted by the magazines when I really hate my body. And that? Is playing with fire. Seriously. I pick them up in grocery lines and skim them, imagining how I could FURTHER reduce the calories in their “GET SKINNY ON 200 CALORIES A DAY!” diet, and lose weight even FASTER.
Fortunately, about then, a small but stern voice in the back of my head pipes up: “PUT. THAT. DOWN. NOW!!!” And I do. But I still WANT it.
And when I’m good with my body? I don’t give the fitness magazines a second glance. Figures.
*sigh*
I don’t read magazines at all. And I’m drawing a blank on the last time I read a book for fun (as opposed to required reading). This is bad. An employer once provided me with a subscription to Self, which was nice, but I have no lasting impression or memories.
I always want to pick up fitness magazines, but I don’t because I remember how horrible Cosmo and the others made me feel as a teenager. I have this idea that fitness magazines will do the same. I’m thinking I should give them a try, though.
I never buy these mags because they are expensive but sometimes my boyfriend will buy me one if i ask in the grocery line (wow, i soound spoiled) or ill take old ones from work or something. i dont read them to learn, i read them because they are colorful and easy and about something i am interested in. i rarely learn anything, but they are just fluff. they are for fun- not to be taken seriously. and the airbrushedness makes me laugh because even in the articles, the girls are lifting 5 pound dumbbells. yeah, good luck with that.
Kelly Turner
http://www.groundedfitness.com
I have a serious magazine problem. I won’t bore you with the list, but as far as fitness mags go, I only subscribe to Shape. And then only because I got a free subscription. But I lurve it. I also pick up Fitness, Women’s Health, and Self regularly. They’re pretty bad, repetative and irritating, but I like to use them when I’m doing the treadmill. And yes, I know I should be tuning into my body and enjoying the stress-relieving meditative qualities of a good run, but bah. Sometimes I just want to zone and sweat. Fitness magazines are EXCELLENT for that, because they provide the anxiety to fuel the workout, and at the same time the workout eases the anxiety.
Not sure that’s HEALTHY, but there you have it.
And speaking of NOT HEALTHY, I can’t resist an article about “How to FLATTEN YOUR BELLY!!!”
The truly sick thing about that? I’m 23 weeks pregnant.
*shakes head at self*
Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve developed a bit of a magazine addiciton. We don’t have a TV, and I was trying to cut back on my internet time, and I don’t really have a life, so I’m a magazine junky. I get Self, Fitness, and Women’s Health, plus a fairly long list of others (Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Parenting, Mothering, Mother Jones, Playboy … the list goes on).
I also do a lot of my reading in the bathroom. When my husband is home, it’s a way I can escape, and he won’t protest – if I gotta go, I gotta go, and he’s not going to ask if I *really* needed that long. I also take magazines into the bathtub, on the rare occasion I get a nice long bath alone.
Do fitness magazines help or hurt? Yes. I do appreciate the tips, especially on weight training exercises. I only started about a year ago, and I’m still clueless and can’t (or won’t) afford a personal trainer, so the mags help me there. But I do sometimes feel worse after reading, too. Mostly, for me, at worst they are a waste of money.
And according to Self.com, I am at almost exactly my “Happy Weight.” And you know what? I’m finally *really* happy with this weight and how it looks and feels! So, maybe that got something right somehow.
I’ll look to anything for inspiration (you never know where you’ll find it) but love Men’s Health (even though I’m a girl), Oxygen, and anything running or yoga oriented. Sometimes I find something really valuable, sometimes I’m disappointed; but magazines are something I can actually get through really quickly between tasks in the day.
I’m not a big fan of reading anything in the bathroom – which is a good thing because after I finish reading my magazine, I usually leave it at Gymnastics for other parents to look at, it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my money if others get some use out of it 🙂
I’m subscribed to Women’s Health, Shape, Self, Runners World… I think that’s it occasionally I’ll buy a Fitness, but it’s just a thinner even more watered down version of Shape.
Women’s health to me seem like it’s a little more advanced than Shape and Self.
I like them, and they don’t make me feel as lousy about myself as the other girly mags, at least these models tend to be less emaciated, sometimes with muscle, and doing an activity as opposed to laying on the floor with nothing but a huge purse.
omg, you crack me up with the P,B,and J sandwich request!
I get Runner’s World and Fitness, although I don’t read them as much anymore. They always seem to have the same articles and “MUST DO!” tips that I get tired of reading them.
Hey, even here in the dessert, when I have to “go,” I take a magazine with. It just gets boring otherwise…..
I tried to stop all my fitness mag subscriptions over a year ago, they just kept renewing themselves! I finally got it down to just Women’s Health (again, by accident). I received subscriptions to the following by joining some stuff: Bicycling, Backpacker and Runner’s world – LOVE THESE! Of course, they are something new for now.
My favorite to read when I can find it though is National Enquireer Adventurer – good stuff in there.
I used to get Shape, but I eventually stopped because it wasn’t giving me any good tips and was all recycled eventually.
Now we get Time, Reason, the Economist, and ESPN Magazine.
Brilliant. ‘Nuff said!
I think this is a good perspective; I often tell people at my speaking engagements that the world would be a better place if more people spent time writing scripture than reading it. In that same context, fitness enthusiasts would better off to write their personal exercise doctrine, rather than reading it.
Those magazines have two functions; to sell advertising, and to sell more magazines which sell more advertising. Nutshell!
I'm late to the party, as usual (HATE when I fall behind my GFE reading!) but I just wanted to say great post.
I'm an editor at Experience Life, and was thrilled to see a couple mentions of us here in the comments (also thrilled that we aren't on anyone's "what *not* to read" list). 🙂
Thanks to Charlotte for taking this topic on — it's something we discuss a lot, as you might imagine.
I could try to explain where we always end up, but my editor in chief does a much better job in her essay "Six Packs & Sex Lives": http://www.experiencelifemag.com/about-us/six-packs–sex-lives.html
Hope you enjoy the read.
I just wanted to note that if you haven’t read the above-mentioned article, you should. It ties in with the post perfectly.
Thanks for the link Jen! I did absolutely read it Deprogram, and now I know what you mean! It does seem like a totally different breed of magazine. I was very impressed with what I read!