Feel Good You Magazine

Key Questions Answered

• What does an issue of Feel Good You cost?
• Where can I get a copy of the mag?
• What’s in it?
• Is it worth me buying?

Overall View

Launched in 2011, Feel Good You is a quarterly wellbeing magazine and a spin off from Woman & Home.

Aimed at women aged 40 plus, the magazine is split into categories like:

• Your Wellbeing
• Your Diet
• Your Self
• Your Beauty

There are recipes, shopping articles, hints and tips and news as well as interviews with a couple of female celebrities and, refreshingly, members of the public.

In Detail

Each category within the magazine has its own intro page with an indication as to what you’ll find within the pages.

The magazine is packed with tips for each category. For example, in the Your Wellbeing category there is an article about spring cleaning your health, home and life. Some of the tips within the article are about getting outside more, tackling clutter, reviewing friendships and having a life audit.

What I did find really like about this magazine was a distinct lack of page after page of in-your-face advertising. In fact, there were only 4 pages given over to full page ads and two of these were for the magazine itself and subscription.

However, within most of the hints and tips lots of products were advertised.

This gave me the impression that the collection of tips had been put together purely for the advertising rather than the actual content.

Even though the content was pretty decent, it lost some of its shine for me.

One example in this issue was the article '10 Tips to Maximise Your Energy'. The headline caught my attention but as I read it through, almost every tip had a product advertised in it.

Articles about crystals and phobias sit comfortably between recipes and reviews of health studies and interviews. I liked the mix of serious and not so serious bits to read and the fact that nearly all of the articles were in ‘bite sized chunks’ so I could dip in and out.

This would be a good magazine to read on the commute to work, on the train or bus, or maybe while taking 10 minutes out for yourself. It seemed informative and the advice was sensible and pretty much fad free. It’s definitely easy reading but with lots of information.

There’s a whole category devoted to diet and one for fitness. My favourite article was ‘Shop Like a Pro’ in the diet category. It asked questions like, ‘must I give up carbs’, and ‘is high fat now okay’ or ‘is fruit now bad for me’ and ‘is gluten free the way to go’.

What I liked was the sensible answers given.

This is the ‘is fruit now bad for me’ answer for example (shortened):

‘I know sugar’s Public Enemy No 1, but it seems mad to stop eating fruit – should I?’

‘The resounding message from the experts is “Don’t panic and keep eating fruit.” Yes, it contains sugar, but it is packed with stuff that’s going to keep you healthy . . . So fruit is good . . . but eaten in moderation as nature intended, not as a smoothie or juice’.

The recipes look delicious and Feel Good You have kindly supplied the calorie count as well as grams of fat, saturated fat and carbs. However, after a closer look, I found the calorie counts in the mag may not be quite so accurate. I picked out three recipes to explain what I mean.:

Chargrilled halloumi with honey per serving

A tasty looking dish and vegetarian to boot!

Feel Good You has this at 467 calories per serving. Below is our calorie count.

Calories	507
Protein	24g
Carbs	13.5g
Fat	39.4g
Fibre	0.7g
Fruit & Veg	0.7g

Healthy chicken and chips per serving

This looks amazing. However, when I calculated the calories, it came out at 629 calories per serving, not the 445 that Feel Good You said it was. It could be that the magazine wasn’t specific enough with the weight of the sweet potatoes. They said 3 medium potatoes rather than an actual weight. Or am I being charitable?

Calories	629
Protein	42.2g
Carbs	39.1g
Fat	34.6g
Fibre	5.7g
Fruit & Veg	2.6g

Tropical meringue parfait per serving

Fresh and zingy, very low in fat and 1 of your 5 a day. However, I found a 30 calorie discrepancy when I created the recipe in wlr. Feel Good You say this recipe is 200 calories oer serving.

Calories	230.6
Protein	7g
Carbs	49.9g
Fat	0.3g
Fibre	1.8g
Fruit & Veg	1g

There was also a 48 hour mini detox that suggested eating little and often as opposed to the normal, ‘drink-only-hot-water-with-cinnamon-and-lemon-and-kale-and-fish-scale-smoothies-for-three-days’ type detox!

There was a full plan of what to eat including how to make the dishes. The meals were things like spiced fruit compote, carrot and peanut salad, avocado and prawn tabbouleh and watercress soup.

I would definitely put any recipes that I use into My Recipes in wlr to make sure the calorie count is correct.

Overall, I would read the magazine again as I did find it pleasant to read with lots of information, even if it was a lot of product info.

Feel Good You Cost and Offers

You can buy Feel Good You quarterly from all good newsagents and some supermarkets (we got our copy at Tesco). It costs £3.99 an issue.

You can subscribe to it instead for £17.25 a year. However, there is a special offer advertised in the magazine that brings it down to £10.49 for 4 issues if you pay by direct debit or £10.99 if paying by cheque, cash or card. If you go for a 2 year subscription, it’s £19.99 for 8 issues.

Issue reviewed:	Spring 2018
Pages:	2.9% advertising
Circulation:	353,731
Cover Price:	£3.99