7 Important Things They Don’t Teach Collegiate Athletes Before Graduat

1. People are no longer going to tell you everything you need to do

People in your life will drop some hints at the fact that, post college, you will not have anyone telling you what to do anymore. Your parents, your coaches, your school counselor will all nudge, but the implications of exactly what that means tends to remain fuzzy until you’re out and far enough away to look back.

You probably had someone dictating your workout schedule for at least the last eight years of your life as well as weighing in heavily on your diet and allotted time for any other outside activity. This new found freedom comes with the same excitement as an unexpected cancelled practice came with. The extra three hours of freedom from a practice off has just turned into a full 24 hours, seven days a week of freedom. Life as a NARP (non athletic regular person) is THE MOST AMAZING THING since Christmas. So amazing that you wonder, at moments, why you even put up with being an athlete during college.

You are now the only one holding yourself accountable. Skipping a workout doesn’t feel so bad and you’ve got nobody to yell at you for it. Basically, you are at the point exactly where Simba was when he couldn't wait to be king. Nobody saying do this, or see here, watch that or be here. Much like Simba’s rapid development and voice change, you have need to embrace your... fluffier... self development.

Now the only people who are telling you what to do are your managers and your parents. Yeah your parents have never actually stopped, but it is the managers and bosses who are the new tyrants. Newsflash, most of them don’t care about your fitness level. They only care if you get to work before them and fill out the TPS reports on time.

2. Strap in for a new experience with your period (men skip this one)

Working out twice a day for your sport in addition to lifting and cross training segments sprinkled in has its perks. While time consuming, it was nice to only see Aunt Flo every few months and only for a short time. Cramping tended to be minimal and for the most part it was a relatively unobtrusive happening.

Fact - you will probably never again hit 25+ hours a week at the gym, on the field, in the pool or any combination of the above. (If you find that time, please call me and tell me how)

After graduating, it is a whole different story and Aunt Flo adjusts herself accordingly. She comes whenever and with whatever force she feels like. The irregularity of the workouts corresponds directly to the irregularity of her arrival. Pre and post menstrual cramping is a whole new experience for most, and heat pads and bed never sounded better. Your period is a whole different animal post graduation. This is when you actually discover what the heck Midol is.

3. Eating anything and everything has its pros and mostly cons

In college, it was very easy for an athlete to eat upwards of 7,000 calories in a single day. Often consuming an adults average single day's worth of calories in a single meal you ate like kings and queens in the cafeterias. Pizza, cheeseburger, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of macaroni and cheese was just an appetizer. Then came the pasta, the endless rounds of every kind of pastas went down like water in a drain. Flash forward to now and you are weighing the pros and cons of getting edamame as an appetizer before your sushi.

What they failed to teach you is that real people don't and simply can't eat like that. After you graduate, unless you are in the 1% of athletes who continue professionally or semi-professionally, your fitness level is about to plummet as your work life balance shifts dramatically. Yes, your metabolism is going to be significantly higher than the average Joe or Jane with an art degree, but they have a talent that you don’t. They know how to eat like regular people...Which you are now.

4. Nobody cares that you were a college athlete in the real world

Being an athlete, you got special treatment. There were obviously different levels of this exemption from real-life-duty depending on what sport you played and in what position, but regardless, you got special treatment. You were allowed to miss or delay exams. You got things paid for. You traveled around the country never having to pay for a single hotel room or even having to learn how to check out in the mornings. Some of you may not even know about the perils of hotel minibars with sensors that automatically charge the room if you touch an item. Being an athlete in college was actually pretty friggin’ awesome.

Here is the catch. You are no longer in college and nobody cares about you anymore. That may seem a little harsh, but it is better than the other option of living in denial for the first few years thinking that your college ID will get you anything beyond a 10% discount on computer software (seriously, save that card for as long as you can).

In the real world, success is not measured on a scoreboard anymore. You don't stand on podiums or get medals and ribbons around your necks. Other things start to matter much more.

5. Exercise gets way way more expensive

How much did you pay to exercise in college? Many of you actually got PAID to exercise. Directly or indirectly the answer all around is going to be less than zero. State of the art facilities and resources at your fingertips and you didn’t drop a dime. Yeah, you may have paid for tuition, but so did those art kids, so that’s a wash. At this point in your life, you may not even know that fitness actually even costs money to do.

Here you are, with essentially your very own personal trainer and facilities...FOR FREE. OK -- Math time. Let’s say you did the NCAA maximum of 20 hours per week. 52 weeks per year while completing your 4 year degree. If you were paying for a personal trainer for those workouts, you would have spent anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 for the equivalent time.

Now you’re out of school and fitness costs money. So does food. You need food to survive. Food wins. You will just run because running is free. The pizza is here, you’ll run tomorrow. It’s raining tomorrow. Hello unhealthy amounts of weight gain.

6. The grocery store is way more difficult than the unlimited cafeteria meal plan

Remember the good old days when you could finish your workout? Remember how you could take the bus to the cafeteria and have full blown thanksgiving breakfast, lunch and dinner in one sitting? From being spoon fed by your parents to spoon fed by your school’s dining hall, most of you probably took food preparation for granted. Now, the closest thing to that kind of instant gratification goes by the name of Chick-Fil-A or Taco Bell.

You are now on your own to not only make healthy decisions at the grocery store but to also cook those healthy grocery store decisions into meals rather than leaving them in your refrigerator door to become science experiments on fungal growth. But all of that is assuming that you even know WHAT to buy at the grocery store. Pop-tarts and Lucky Charms quickly became your go-to meals because cooking chicken for dinner requires too many ingredients and way too much planning in advance.

It is a rough adjustment. Everybody, struggles with this, not just athletes. Convenience is convenience, but at some point wiping the mold out of your veggie drawer for the 72nd time will become too annoying to ignore.

7. You need to make your own friends and it's terrifying

You probably never thought about this one...but you probably never had to “make” friends - they always just showed up to practice. They showed up in droves. There were probably so many teammates that you just had to adopt them as roommates, brothers and sisters, and that you had to selectively NOT be friends with people because you didn’t have the time to be that social.

Speaking of being social, remember how basically all of your social events were essentially planned for you because of your sport? The good news is that it's only 3,650 days until your ten year reunion. The bad news is that your only friend now is Enrique in the IT department at work because he was able to help you out when your computer wasn’t working. The really bad news is that being social now means work lunches and team building exercises with your co-workers who are all twice your age. Now, there is nothing wrong with older friends, but what happened to all the people your age?

Now try dating… Hello Tinder.