Sometimes fat free yogurt just doesn't cut it, you know? I'm under the gun at work right now and all I really want to do is dive into a barrel of chocolate bars. Instead, I'm drinking my water, eating my fat free yogurt and am doing my very best to just suck it up. In addition to boredom and lack of structure, please add stress to the list of things that will work against me.

Stress and frustration aside, I had a fabulous workout this morning. I rode almost 7 miles again this morning and felt great afterward. I actually had a great night's sleep last night so I was well rested when I got up this morning (yay!!). I'm really working at increasing the amount of exercise I do each week. I try to do this gradually and it's working. I feel a lot more "muscle-y" lately. My legs are starting to look pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I read the following article on the weekend and thought it was pretty cool. It pretty much sums up what I've said all along, find something that works for you and stick to it. I get really distressed when folks get into a battle of what's "better," low fat or low carb. I always wonder, what difference does it make? If you don't find something that is manageable for you, you're not going to stick with it, no matter what it is. Anyway, if you didn't see the article on the weekend, here it is:

Four Popular Diets All Work Well, U.S. Study Shows
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - No matter what diet you are on, if you eat less and lose weight you also lower your risk of heart disease, doctors told a conference on Sunday.

Weight Watchers, the high-fat Atkins diet, the extremely low-fat Ornish diet and the high-protein, moderate carbohydrate Zone diet all help people lose weight and all reduce cholesterol, but in different ways, the researchers said.

"On average, participants in the study reduced their heart disease risk by 5 percent to 15 percent," Dr. Michael Dansinger of Tufts University in Boston told a meeting of the American Heart Association.

"Instead of saying there is one clear winner here, we are saying they are all winners."

And, as might be expected, the closer dieters followed the plans, the more weight they lost.

Those who stuck it out for a full year lost, on average, 5 percent of their body weight -- or about 10 to 12 pounds.

While the dieters reduced heart disease "risk factors" such as cholesterol levels, overall blood pressure did not drop much and the study did not last long enough to see if this translated into a lower long-term risk of heart disease.

Instead, the researchers used statistics that show lowering cholesterol by a certain amount, for instance, reduces the risk of heart disease overall.

Dr. Robert Eckel of the University of Colorado, who heads the Heart Association's nutrition committee, said the message is clear -- lose weight however you can to reduce your risk of heart disease.

WEIGHT REDUCTION

"I think weight reduction trumps a lot of other stuff," Eckel said.

For the study Dansinger and colleagues chose 160 overweight people and randomly assigned 40 to each of four different diets. They weighed an average 220 pounds (100 kg) and needed to lose between 30 and 80 pounds.

All agreed to follow the diets to the best of their ability for two months, although none were enrolled in the full programs that Weight Watchers and Dr. Dean Ornish advocate.

They include exercise, group meetings and food diaries for Weight Watchers and stress reduction for the Ornish diet.

After two months 22 percent of the dieters had given up. After a year, 35 percent dropped out of Weight Watchers and the Zone diets and 50 percent had quit the Atkins and Ornish plans.

Dansinger and other researchers said the study suggested there is no one-size-fits-all diet best for everyone.

"The type of person who is going to go for a low-fat, vegetarian diet is not, in my experience, the kind of person who is going to go for a high-meat diet," Dansinger said.

But for people with high cholesterol levels, the Ornish diet might be the most beneficial, Dansinger said.

"The Ornish diet, low-fat vegetarian, was best for lowering the bad LDL cholesterol, while other diets were better at raising the good HDL cholesterol," Dansinger said. Low density lipoprotein cholesterol is the stuff that clogs arteries, while high density lipoprotein carries fat out of the blood.

"Atkins reduced LDL 8.6 percent, Zone 6.7 percent, Weight Watchers 7.7 percent and Ornish 16.7 percent," Dansinger said in a statement afterwards. He said the Atkins and Zone diets diet raised HDL by about 15 percent, Weight Watchers by 18.5 percent, and Ornish by 2.2 percent.

Ornish said doctors often place too high a value on high HDL levels. "If you reduce fat, there is less garbage, less saturated fat and cholesterol, so your body needs less garbage trucks," he said.

But Dansinger said his study was one of several that has suggested the high-fat Atkins diet, in the short-term, does not raise the risk of heart disease.