Self Magazine Review

I love Sparkpeople.com. I can't not love it. Although I know people can find it overwhelming and confusing when first joining it. The site is absolutely amazing. Giving you resources and support on your health journey. It's not like any other free wight loss website out there. I know, I've joined dozens of them. But sparkpeople isn't just about weight loss. It's about getting healthy. They have a lot of resources from support groups to an online health coach. They even have stuff about getting financially healthy as well. This site is great for everyone. Lose weight, gain bulk, tone up, healthier eating, vegan diets, all sorts of stuff. The first year I got on them I didn't really use it because of a lot of reasons. Partly I couldn't figure out how to use it and partly because my life went to hell in a hand basket 2 months later. But I'm not really here to talk so much about sparkpeople as something else.

Sparkpeople has this great person on their staff who goes by "Coach Nicole" shes inspirational and amazing. She talks about finding your healthy weight and not trying to force yourself down to unhealthy images we see on tv and in magazines. This summer she got the opportunity to work with SELF magazine. It was great. She wrote about the experience and the cloths and the people she worked with. But as she was talking about it, there was things posted on sparkpeople about how she was going to be in the September Issue. It was July and she was so excited and positive about things and I was in such need for some extra boosts of positivity and health that I decided to sign up for the Magazine. It was like $12 for a year! So in July I signed up for it. And Paid for a full year subscription by internet. Of course they always say expect 6-8 weeks for the first edition to reach you. In August I decided to subscribe to Yoga Journal and Vegetarian Times. All in my pursuit for a happier, healthier, better future.

The first week in September I got both Yoga Journal and Vegetarian Times in the mail. I decided to paitently wait for my SELF magazine while I poored through those other two and started incorporating things into my life. By the end of the first week in October I still hadn't recieved an issue of SELF. I had even ran around town looking for a September issue in September because I didn't want to miss out on the one with Coach Nicole in it. I couldn't find a single place that had any copies. That was in September. I figured that when I finally got my copy in the mail I could give the extra copy away to someone else who might be interested.

Stores are supposed to switch over to the next issues of magazines the last week of the month before. So October issues went out between the 20th and 25th of September. Not that I could find any of those ones in town. The whole point of signing up was to get September's issue with Coach Nicole. By the end of the first week in October I had yet to recieve a single issue of SELF magazine. I got online and checked my account. They weren't going to send me a September issue. They were starting my subscription in October. Even though I had signed up and paid in July. Ok whatever, I figured I would see what they were like anyways. But I had already begun to recieve weekly requests to renew my subscription in my email and my mailbox. I hadn't even gotten and SINGLE issue yet and they were bugging me to renew already! I sent an email to their customer service explaining that I had yet to recieve a single issue and the first week of October was almost over. I of course got the email saying they recieved my email and a customer service person would be contacting me shortly. A WEEK later they emailed me and all the person said was that at the time of my email the magazine wasn't considered late yet. That was it. How lame is that?

So I waited and by the last week of October I had STILL not received October's issue. I sent another email explaining that. All I got in responce was the automated email saying someone would be in touch with me shortly. It's December 19th. No one EVER got in touch with me. No email, no phone call. I finally recieved my October issue on the last saturday of the month. Over a week since the stores would have pulled the October issue off the shelves. November...same thing happened. got my November issue the last weekend of the month. Ever other magazine subcription I've gotten in my life have all come within the flast week of the month prior or the first few days of that month. I have had a LOT of magazine subscriptions over the years. Until recently I regularly subscribed to a large number of horse magazines. I used to subscribe to a number of fitness and health magazines as well. I have never had such poor service.

I will not be renewing my subscription to them. Their service sucks and their magazine is over 75% advertisements. Whats really sad is that this put a damper on my enthusiasm about sparkpeople and coach nicole. But it wasn't only a small damper. No one is perfect. And for every person that complains theres like 10 people who love it. But I wont have anything to do with them ever again. It was only a $12 mistake, but it's still a total bummer.

I continue to receive weekly emails and letters urging me to renew and sign up a friend. I don't think there is anyone I dislike enough to sign them up free or for a small price.

The Year of the Core

I was just reading an interesting email through About.com on Yoga. I subscribe to some of their email newsletters. The one on Yoga is written by Ann Pizer (http://yoga.about.com/bio/Ann-Pizer-12794.htm?nl=1) and it always has good information. For those of you who don't know. About.com has a number of free newsletters and e-courses that you can have delivered directly to your inbox and you can always opt out of them at any time. I get a number of them including trying to learn French in preparation for talking French once I head back to college.

So in this article she talked about all this negative stuff that happened concerning Yoga in the last year and how she chooses not to think about that but to think about the positive aspects. Which, honestly, is something I've struggled with in the last couple years. Its something a lot of people struggle with but is much needed for all of us.  The need to focus on more positive then negative. Which is not the point of this but really people. We have so much negativity in our lives. We really should try to focus more on the positive. You can see the negative, you can acknowledge it, but we shouldn't dwell in it. We just bring our own lives down. So Ann is looking back on the last year and calling it the year of the core. If you read the information she provides you can see how its true. However if you're anything like me you probably haven't been focusing on your core muscles this last year. And lets face it people.

Core is where it's all at. Balance, life, it all revolves around your core. Your core muscles (the abs and lower back) are the foundation for everything we do. Every day we use our core muscles continuously. I'm learning more and more about how they play a major part in every single thing we do. Everything. I'm serious. Stop looking at me like that :) no really, look it up. Your core muscles connect to everything. They're responcible for everything. And when they're weak, we suffer. We have problems. So while everything is connected I was thinking about what she was saying about last year being the year of the core. But I was thinking I will make this next year the year of the core for me.

Let me explain. While I'm starting to do Yoga again and practicing bellydancing. While I'm sitting at my desk or walking my dogs. Every thing I do brings those core muscles into use. I don't know about you but let me tell you something. My core muscles are WEAK. This year I will once again try to focus more on myself. And I will do better then I did last year. While working through my health and fitness I'm going to do some major focusing on my core muscles. With everything connected through them, I think this is a very important thing to focus on. Core is everything. So lets make this next year the year of the core. Utilize the resources that were created last year to make a better, stronger next year.