Magazines – going green

With the holidays coming up, it makes sense to talk about low cost and environmentally friendly gifts. I know, “Magazines? What?” But magazines are usually (not always) $20 or less for a year’s subscription. AND they CAN be environmentaly friendly!

There are a few magazines that I read regularly. Not surprisingly, most of them are yoga magazines. They’ve all got good information and I’m the kind of person who wants to hang on to them. I’m also the kind of person who has great intentions about cutting out the articles or recipes that I want to keep (so I can get rid of the rest of the magazine) and never quite gets around to doing it.

Last year I discovered Zinio. com. It’s a fantastic website that offers magazines in digital content. You can choose to download them or read them from the Zinio website. Either way, they’re not stacking up in piles next to your end table. The best thing is that you can read them forever. If there’s an article you want, you can print it out. You only end up with the paper you want, rather than being stuck with a whole magazine to discard. 

I’m lazy. I know I’m lazy. And this site is brilliant for me. My two personal recs: Yoga Journal and Women’s Health.

Yoga Journal (which I also link in my sidebar) provides a lot of great information and insight from several different teachers. I don’t love all their advertising (a common complaint of people who aren’t fans) but I also only look at the advertising if I’m LOOKING for something. I skip all ads and go right to the articles I want. Having this in e-format is fantastic because you can print out the information about asanas, or their ‘master class’ and save what you like. It is not my favorite yoga magazine (see: Yoga + Joyful Living) but it’s a close second.

I didn’t get into Women’s Health until Spouse started reading Men’s Health. Men’s Health has great articles about fitness and diet with an upbeat and pro-health/anti-negative message. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Women’s Health does the same thing but is tailored to the specific concerns of women. It’s not just Men’s Health for Women. I love their recipes. Their articles are about lifestyle change and positive attitudes. You’ll be hard pressed to find a single negative word in each issue. And they’re full of REALLY PRACTICAL tips that you can actually use. In almost every issue there’s a 15-minute workout feature (or something like that) with an emphasis on correct form (a personal tweak of mine). It does a great job of covering everything – diet, health, beauty, fitness, sex, and relationships – and makes it feel like you’re talking to your best (smartest) girlfriends about it. It’s not gossipy, just educational. The recipes are great and you can also find workouts and workout playlists at their website (which is also awesome). Not only that, it manages to be ENTERTAINING. Loves it.

If you were only going to choose one of these magazines, I’d go with Women’s Health. Their most recent issue has quite a lot of yoga info in it and overall I think it translates better to general workouts.