A window popped up on my internet browser the other day. It promised me I could earn $12,000 a month working from home. It gave me testimonials from working class people who had already tried this fail-safe system. For instance, Debbie the stay-at-home mom did it to supplement her husband's income, and now she's driving a Lamborghini. I don't know how she fits a booster seat in a Lamborghini, but I didn't ask questions. Ironically, the ad didn't even want to keep this incredible money-making opportunity a secret. Amazing, right?

Yeah, I wasn't impressed either.

When we're talking about get-rich-quick schemes, it's easy to be skeptical. But why do we doubt them? The underlying idea is that earning money takes a lot of work. If someone is offering you an “opportunity” to make a lot of cash with minimal time or effort, it's too good to be true.

Yet, incidentally, this idea doesn't translate to weight loss. Enter this year's newest weight loss pill fad, lorcaserin. Link: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/jul.... Consumers are getting excited because this could be the first diet pill without serious negative side effects. Personally, I'm 100% convinced that if we give it enough time this pill will cause some kind of detrimental effects to peoples' well-being. Other diet pills have caused heart palpitations, higher blood pressure, and bowel leakage. Why anyone would risk having this side effects is beyond me.

But I digress. The larger issue at play is mentality. What happened to taking time out of our already-busy schedules to grind out several sweat-filled workouts a week? I'm talking about pushing yourself until it feels like your pumping battery acid through your veins and your pores are screaming at you to stop. Pushing yourself until you're convinced that one more rep will kill you. People who push themselves that hard have the mental strength to hit their goal and stick with it for the long term. Those who don't have that mental discipline shouldn't be surprised when they look for shortcuts to healthy living and find that it's not very healthy at all. Just like working to make a living, there is no way to lose weight without time and energy. Let's just call all diet pills get-thin-quick schemes.

-Kris, SDC