BB trainer Kara Agostino is a mommy of two, lifelong exerciser, lover of writing & reading & all-around interesting chick! Check out Kara’s bio and train with Kara at a BB class near you or train one-on-one at home for the fastest results.

Sometimes the hardest part of life as a parent is making space and time for working towards our personal goals. There are so many fitness products and promotions that promise to help us achieve our weight loss goals in the most limited amount of time. 90 days! 60 days! 15 minutes a day! Usually the fine print says something to the effect of “as long as you adhere to the diet plan as prescribed by this product” and I can guarantee that those diet plans don’t account for the hour you have to get the family fed and out the door before swimming lessons on Thursday night!

But I am a firm believer in goals — both short term and long term. Right now I’m finding that with a 15 month old and 4 year old, I need to be very realistic with myself about the achievability of my goals. So, short term goals have to be things that I can successfully achieve to help motivate me towards my long term goals. My short term goals are small and manageable like:

1. Eat green, leafy vegetables every day; 2. Try one new recipe each week (I also have a mountain of cookbooks!)

Success at long term goals kind of sneaks up on you — you’re working at it, improvement is incremental and maybe not obvious but one day you wake up and you’re there. Seriously. I sometimes take a conditioning class at a local gymnastics club and one of our challenges is to climb the rope that hangs from the middle of the room (yes, this is classic 80s gym class stuff). In a recent class, one of the women (a mom of 2 preteens) stepped up and climbed to the top like she does it everyday. But here’s the thing: the last time she tried she could only pull herself up by two arm lengths. She’s been working towards this since November! I can’t describe how excited we were for her and how excited and surprised by herself she was — it was an awesome moment!

My current long term goals are:

1. Be able to perform at least 5 chin ups; 2. Complete the 100 push-up challenge; 3. Climb to the top of the rope at the gymnastics gym!; (I know, I’m very upper body strength focused right now!!)

In this blog, I’ll be exploring how to incorporate fitness into your daily family routines, sharing products and exercises that I find effective and FUN, sharing recipes (see short term goal #2!) and separating the fitness fads from the fitness gems that actually work! Follow along with me to see how I progress towards achieving my goals!

What are your short term and long term fitness/health goals?