Oxygen Magazine: The anti-Primal Magazine



oxygenmag.com



Almost a year ago during the height of my Eat-Clean efforts, Grok bought me a subscription to Oxygen magazine and I bought him Men's Health.  We were so happy with our new reads and looked forward to getting a new publication each month.

Things have changed, however.  Now that I've committed to living primally, I've realized that this magazine is not for me.  Not only am I tired of seeing far too many one-page ads for flavoured powder supplementation and weight-loss pills, but all of the recipes have multiple non-primal components that can be quite hard to substitute.

For example, the cover of March 2011 references "sandwhich solutions".  Basically, they give you different very low-fat salad ideas and then you wrap it in a tortilla or pita.  That's two strikes against Primal right there.  Another article includes a high-protein meal plan, where most days you're to consume oatmeal or waffles, crackers, bread, legumes and low-fat everything.  Ummmm, no thanks.  Oh, and don't forget the loads of intense cardio.

What Oxygen is good for is suggesting different strength-training moves.  That's about it.  I end up challenging everything else I read in the magazine because I know the Eat-Clean motives are a driving factor behind the piece.

The hard part is that all the magaine's contributors believe in consuming lots of grains, legumes and near-to-no-fat, but who am I to talk since I don't look like an Oxygen model [yet!]?  My belief in a living a Primal lifestyle is routed in the proof that I've read from loads of sources, where Oxygen continues to use the same old rhetoric, remaining unchallenged by conventional wisdom. 

When a curious reader writes in about the use of coconut oil due to its increasing popularity, the response is always "we recommend a diet low in saturated fat [and low-fat in general] and the impact of consuming coconut oil is unknown [lie!]"

The biggest thing for me is how I feel.  While Eating Clean, I was constantly hungry and the mag told to eat every 2 hours so that I keep my energy up (code for needing to keep up my higher glucose levels so that I don't suffer from a sugar crash).  For Primal eating, I eat when I'm hungry, and what I eat keeps me hungry for hours.  It's by far the easiest way to eat and it's intuitive.

Menshealth.com

By comparison, I really like Grok's Men's Health subscription.  There are loads of recipes that keep the carbs at bay and look absolutely delicious.  There is of course the exception but many of the tips in the magazine also promote low-carb eating.  The workouts are great too.

I'm not saying that Oxygen is a bad magazine.  I'm saying that it's a waste of money if you're living a Primal lifestyle, and if you hate advertising (an not just ads, it's the same old ads again and again).  I think that I need a real health magazine. Oxygen only promotes and recognizes one type of lifestyle - and that is Eat-Clean.  I'm sure they would scoff at Primal.  And I'd retort by saying that Primal is cleaner than Eat-Clean.

Sorry Oxygen, it's time to move on.  You're no longer good enough for me.  You're cute though.