Customer Reviews

Shape

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

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'm a past subscriber of Shape magazine. I enjoyed the Success Stories the most - I'd like to see one of these as a main feature, with more exercise/diet details.
I did enjoy it for a couple of years, then I got a feeling of deja vu - the articles started getting a bit samey, like they're running out of ideas and recycling the same old stuff. I might buy the odd Shape issue on the newstand if a cover feature catches my eye, but now I'm trying out some other fitness magazines for variety.
I agree with another reviewer that too many of the exercises use machines - I'd much rather see handweights. Maybe when they recycle the same ol 'moves again, they could use free weights.

And the clothes profiled are too expensive, not to the mention the emphasis on vacationing at health spas (why do these always smell of staff junkets...)

My advice is to subscribe for a year or two, then reread the same issues again...

I read some of the previous reviews and honestly I don't fully see where they are coming from. I've subscribed for about a year and a half and while I see some recaps on some similar exercises, they throw in new things a lot. There are a lot of recipes and notes on diets and such that I love, and they only talk about how bad fad diets are and don't advertise for them! The workouts do mostly require membership at gyms, but that's why there are magazines out there like Self...I kind of consider Shape for not so amateur exercises and Self for the new and not really wanting to spend a lot of time at it person, or who wants to workout only at home. It's great they show you the equipment and how to use it...and all kinds of great little tips that are helpful. I also do like a little of the beauty stuff, yet it's not overwhelming it. yes the clothes are spendy, but who says you have to buy them? I think they are in all magazines!

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.

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!

I am a subscriber to Shape and I will not be renewing my subscription. If I had a self esteem problem looking at this magazine would just make it worse. I have been quite disappointed with the models used in the articles. Most of them look as if they are posing for Victoria Secrets and not a fitness magazine and they are extremely skinny. The clothes that are advertised are not affordable for the average working women and many of the articles are not that helpful. The only section I do enjoy is the "Success Stories" which portray real women in real life situations. I really wish the magazine would revamp itself and gear it more towards the "Real Woman".

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.

I'm known in the low-carb/fitness world as Sugar Free Sheila, and SHAPE featured my success story in their June 2004 issue. Though I was very clear about following Atkins, they fabricated an entire story, saying that I lost the 30 pounds by low-fat means. I'm a two-time low-carb cookbook author, and they stated that not only were my cookbooks LOW-FAT, but mere "collections of [my] favorite recipes." My cookbooks' *low-carb* recipes are entirely my own!

There were a couple of completely made-up quotes in my story as well, I suppose in order to make the story interesting, which added insult to injury. After this issue came out, I was inundated with e-mails from fans thinking I had sold out just to get my story in SHAPE. By the way, since people ask: I never saw a proof before the success story went to print.

To read about how I actually lost the weight, please see SugarFreeSheila.com.

P.S: Every SHAPE weight loss success story I have ever seen, before or since my own, has been a low-fat one. Food for thought.

This magazine had some good points, such as the inspiring stories of people who had met their fitness and weight goals, and they had some useful exercises in there, but I had two main problems with this magazine: One, concerning weight training, it focused too much on weight-machines, overlooking free weights, which actually are better for you, working your stabilizing muscles! and Two : the clothes modelled in there were extremely unrealisticly priced.... I don't know anyone that would pay that!

For someone looking for something entertaining, this is the magazine for you. If you are serious about fitness, diet, and training, I would recommend something else.

This is a "fluffy" women's fitness magazine. It regurgitates the same information over and over, just repackages it a little differently each time. "Let's give readers the same workout with a red bikini this time..." They use models that are far too thin and not even muscular looking for most of the fashion spreads, which seems to encourage an unhealthy body type. I also found the magazine to underassume the intelligence of the readers. Muscle & Fitness Hers, Oxygen and Fitness Rx are much better choices if you are serious about fitness.