Shape (1-year auto-renewal)

I've been a subscriber for two years, but I'm not going to renew this time. There are some great things about this magazine. There's always information about eating healthy, and many of the recipes are wonderful. Another feature is the Diary portion, where the magazine profiles individuals who have turned to fitness and healthy eating in order to lose weight. It's the most inspiring part of the magazine, and it's great that the magazine focuses on real women, not just how to tell those in perfect shape to stay in shape.

I do wish that the magazine would have a bit more variety. I feel like I keep seeing many of the same exercises repeated over and over. I also wish the magazine would realize that not all of us are in to New Age spirituality. If you do choose to subscribe, don't be surprised to see the latest issue at the newsstand before it arrives in your mailbox.

I've been subscribing to Shape for two years now and I have decided not to renew my subscription this year. When I first began reading Shape, it was almost solely dedicated to fitness and health. Now it's about 50% beauty and fashion (and a lot is articles that are simply trying to push products). I disagree with the writer who said that she wished they would stop showing moves with gym machines; this is one of the few sections of SHAPE I enjoy reading, as it does give great instructions on how to use the machines (definitely cheaper than hiring a personal trainer). But I do agree with the previous comments that the stories are starting to all sound the same from month to month especially the success stories. If you're just starting to exercise, this magazine will be helpful for you. But if you're a long-time exerciser, skip this one.

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I use to subscribe to SHAPE several years ago, and then it was packed full of great work out routines, meal plans, etc for women at all levels of fitness.

Well . . . my last few months of Shape have been a complete disappointment. I found very few pages of good genuine fitness and healthy eating advice. Instead, it ranks right up with Glamour in the category of magazines with the highest percentage of advertisements, nearly all of the excercise material is supposed "quick fix" fitness fluff which gives women very unrealistic expectations, and the healthy eating advise is absolutely elementary.

There is no substance in here for women like me, the average working woman who desire to live a healthy life everyday and have limited time to commit to exercise. I want a magazine that is inspiring with a focus on living a sustained healthy lifestyle, not a joke about getting flat abs in a week with illustrations of perfectly chiseled models who obviously do not face the body challenges of average women. I'm sorry but most women are not going to look like "her" after two weeks, or many months of Shape's 10-30 minute a day routines, but they sure lead you to beleive so.

I highly recommend "Her Sports" it is THE magazine for women desiring to live an active, day-to-day healthy life!

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Hardly an issue of "SHAPE" hits the newstands that does not prominently feature some article that sells some myth of fitness. There is almost always some article on "sculpting" followed by another implying there are some magic "spot reducing" exercise contained the pages. These two myths of fitness seem to be part of the magazine's core editorial policy. "Sculpting" is something done to clay, not muscles and fat, and "spot reducing" is a myth that ranks up there with the Flat Earth Society. I suspect the editorial staff of "SHAPE" promotes the kind of articles that espouse what people want to hear, not what is true about working out. Furthermore, nearly every photo of a strength training exercise features some hot-looking 20-something model using weights so light they wouldn't challenge a grandmother. Never will you see a picture of a model holding a weight that would be even slightly heavy for a healthy, fit woman of that age.

Mostly this magazine seems to be an excuse to sell ad space. Save your money and look elsewhere.

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About two years ago, I became a subscriber to Shape, mainly because I had received it for free as part of a package deal with another magazine. I had always liked browsing through issues of Shape in the supermarket, and I thought that being a subscriber would help support my fitness goals. Overall, I have enjoyed Shape and found it to be useful, but there definitely are some negatives, and the magazine might not be for everyone.

But first the good. Like many others have mentioned, what I most enjoy about Shape is their real-life weight stories featuring a nice variety of women, some of whom actually needed to *gain* weight in order to be healthy. I also love their relatively new feature in which they follow one of their own staffers on a year-long weight loss journey. Many of their other regular features are also excellent, particularly the body part-focused strength exercises and other how-to exercise guides. And I especially like that Shape uses "Reader Models" with so many of their articles--real life women of various ages (although admittedly, mostly in the 25-35 range) with normal, healthy, strong bodies. Finally, their featured exercise plans each month often offer some unique variations on traditional exercises, and the recipes are often quite good as well.

The main negative has already been brought up by many others here: the use of too-skinny, not overtly fit or strong models to illustrate much of the magazine. I find this extremely disappointing; I understand that to sell magazines, the models probably have to conform to some traditional standards of attractiveness, but those of us buying the magazine want to see women who are not only fit but also strong--show us some muscles now and then! As I said above, the reader models are great; the women are usually quite fit, but they have muscles and curves too, which is wonderful to see. Shape MAY be trying to make some improvements in this area, as the last few covers have featured famous women who do exercise (such as Denise Richards), but they still have a long way to go. And while they're at it, I hope they will return to having their cover models dress in fitness wear, not bathing suits! They can still show off their model's physique AND showcase cute fitness wear at the same time. Similarly, I would like to see the magazine get rid of the fashion segment at the end *unless* they start focusing it on exercise clothing, not haute couture.

If you are overweight and/or new to exercising, you may find the magazine discouraging, but if you can get past some of the negatives, it can also be inspiring. I think it's up to each individual to determine whether a magazine like this is likely to hurt or help her fitness efforts; for me, it is helpful, but this definitely might not be the case with everyone.

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