Athlete Elevation

Anyone else get used to eating an entire box of pasta after evening practices? 🙋‍♀️

Nutrition can be a STRUGGLE to navigate after retiring from sport.
You probably are not burning as many calories as you did while you were still playing your sport.
You maybe got used to eating whatever you wanted sometimes.
Some college athletes, professional athletes, etc. may have been able to work with a dietician or nutritionist who was super helpful when it came to knowing what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat.
As you're getting older too, you can't get away with eating what you did before.

Because of all these things, often, your nutritional needs change once you retire. Not only that, but you may not have the same help, resources, and accountability that you did while you still played your sport.

AND! Nutrition is so important!!!! Not only is it huge for physical health, but there are so many ways that the food you fuel your body with impacts you mentally.

Our goal with nutrition at our Center for Life After Sport is to help athletes with their nutrition - know what to fuel their body with and how to have a great relationship with food.

Identity can be one of the most challenging things to navigate after retiring from sport. But while it can be hard...
Once athletes discover this about themselves, identity and purpose outside of sport can be one of the most empowering and beautiful things about life.

Common questions athletes ask are:
• Am I still/can I still be an “athlete”?
• What else am I other than an “athlete”?
• What am I good at outside of being an athlete?
• What do I bring to this world?
• Who do others see me as?

Again, all common and all NORMAL! Exploring questions like these can be a huge first step in finding identity outside of sport.

Also - one of my biggest beliefs is that YOU ARE STILL AN ATHLETE! Hence “life after sport” versus “retired/former/ex athlete.” But what is imperative to this is not letting “athlete” be the only identity.

Introducing…. The Center for Life After Sport’s 5 pillars of success and wellbeing!!!
Identity, career, fitness, nutrition, and mental health are all different components of life that are hugely impacted by sport, being an athlete, and the transition out of sport - whether it be good, bad, positive, negative, something you love, something you dread, etc.

These 5 things are central to our core focus - empowering athletes to find success in these areas after sport and helping them find the positive impact it has on their overall well-being.

Throughout the next few days, we will be diving deeper into more specifics of each of these topics, so stay tuned!

Some people think I'm crazy for my 4 shots of espresso with cold foam at Starbucks, but HEY! It's within what the FDA says is safe. But my 4 espresso shots + cup of morning coffee really feeds my strong addiction to caffeine. Not great.

I will also add that another potential risk of caffeine is... the INSANE amount of money you can spend on caffeine. 😂 That might be my personal biggest culprit here. (That never seems to stop me though).

What's your relationship with caffeine like???

P.S. Yes I like Starbucks. I'm slightly embarrassed by that but also not at all.