I have decided to start a new feature on my blog, “Question of the Day.” Every so often, I am posed questions; I thought I would start to share these periodically with you before doing related follow-up posts.

I was emailed a question this week that I have heard many times; I would appreciate your input.

The email was from a reader who has a friend who has been struggling with living a healthy lifestyle for several years; as a result, the friend is severely overweight.  The reader wants to be supportive and a good friend to the other.

I am a strong believer that goals should be written down.  It is easy to set a goal (i.e., have a mental plan), but I think it is more effective to have the goals some place where you can refer back to them in detail.  I find if I have my goals written down somewhere, they provide me with a greater sense of accountability. Therefore, since spring is here and bathing suit season is just around the corner, I thought I would share a plan for getting back in shape.  Since many think their stomach is their problem area, I thought I would focus on strengthening our cores.  Check out the detailed plan below.  You can use this template for detailing any goal you wish to achieve.