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Ah, the new year. It sprawls before us, shimmering with opportunities - for women to get beauty tips and maybe shed a few pounds.
Health stresses the practical, such as washing hair every other day instead of every day to avoid dryness. Others, such as the chocolate diet, seem far-fetched. Based on a new theory that flavor, not calories, triggers fullness, the Flavor Point diet focuses on a single flavor a day. There are menus full of lemon, onion, currant - and yes, even chocolate. But, perhaps not surprisingly, the writer of the article claimed to have not lost a single pound on this diet. (Must have been that extra helping of chocolate brownies.) The magazine also has some good suggestions for workout gear, like featherweight Avia running shoes, but also some impractical ones, like $70 yoga pants.
There are diets galore in the current issue of Self. And if that's not enough, Denise Richards reveals her dieting secrets, including eating whatever she wants - one day a week. Other helpful hints: Eat more nuts and spices, and cut back on booze. For those trying to quit smoking, there is good news - new cutting-edge drugs make it easier. And there's a look at how yoga has helped Mariel Hemingway cope with personal tragedies. Those not planning to lose weight, quit smoking or start exercising may want to read how to have "Hotter, Happier Sex." Don't get too excited - the tips are a bit anticlimactic. Stay home and have a date night, for one.
Fitness is for the woman who doesn't want to work out but feels she must when confronted with beach photos from her last trip to Bermuda. The diet and exercise advice is sound, but the mag overstates the possibilities. A classic example is the promise that we can have a "lean, firm, totally toned body in four weeks flat" - with only dropping five pounds. Puh-leese!
Women's Health steers clear of New Year's resolutions. This sounds great until we realize that what the mag is suggesting is that we get in shape and stay in shape year-round. The good news is that it offers a sensible workout plan that is varied enough to be interesting and practical. It also lists "no-fail" weight-loss rules. Hey, it beats having to think about bagging those pounds again next year.
Shape plays into our annual self-improvement vows with its strategy for a "New Year, a New You." The total-body makeover plan is fine, although some of the weight-lifting maneuvers strike us as complicated: Coupling a deep-knee leg lunge with a single-arm dumbbell move requires more coordination than we have. Workout routines aside, the mag does a good job of encouraging women to give it a try. For inspiration, it profiles singer Sheryl Crow, who counts fiancé and superman cyclist Lance Armstrong as her workout buddy.
One reason New Orleans was so ravaged during its hurricane crisis was because the city's police department collapsed almost immediately. The New Yorker paints a grim picture of institutional failure. Cops had "no way to respond to the crisis: no boats, no cars, no ammunition," with a chief of police, Ed Compass, who disappeared and was spotted wandering aimlessly. The city cops' history of corruption didn't help, either. Elsewhere, the issue offers some encouraging words on baldness, which affects about half of men and a third of women.
New York serves up a cover package on the city's 101 best restaurants, ranked in order (No. 1: Le Bernardin.) The mag also introduces a new five-star rating system. Its Intelligencer column says The New York Times has gone crazy with articles on the Boston Red Sox, some featuring slugger Manny Ramirez. The Times has mentioned the club 105 times since spring training - two more times than the Yankees and 26 more than the Mets. It gets political with a piece on the undiplomatic behavior of America's envoy to the United Nations, John Bolton.
The newsweeklies wear their hearts on their sleeves, or in this case, on their covers. Newsweek's cover package plows into the controversy on how much power the White House should have. It dissects abuses in past administrations since Lincoln, and chronicles how President Bush and Vice President Cheney have quietly assumed considerable powers since 9/11. Elsewhere, Newsweek reports how Afghanistan can't kick its opium and poppy-farming habits, and details how hundreds of Iraqi doctors are being murdered and kidnapped, making it no place to get sick. Back home, the magazine reports that Americans are becoming so fat so quickly, sales of motorized carts are skyrocketing because we're too obese to walk.
Time gives the cover treatment to an excerpt of a book on Martin Luther King's personal troubles in his final days. Author Taylor Branch tells how King confessed to his wife about a mistress, and reveals his complaints about his staff in the civil rights movement, including Rev. Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young. On the wiretapping controversy, Time reports that former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales OK'd the secret operations. On the Iraqi front, the magazine says that a leader of the insurgents had been given orders "by superiors" not to launch any attacks during last month's elections so that minority Sunnis could go to the polls.
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