S2E49: How I Recovered From Body Dysmorphia
Colleen Conlon is a virtual fitness entrepreneur who specializes in helping women overcome self limiting beliefs by mastering kettlebells. As a girl she struggled with an eating disorder, multiple abdominal surgeries, and lacked confidence. As the women she is today she has built a 6 figure virtual business, set + beat a Guinness Book World Record with kettlebells, and has never felt more confident in herself and her ability to help empower others. Her advice has been featured in publications such as the New York Post, Women's Health, Dragon Door Publications and many more.
Social media and contact information:
www.colleenconlon.com
Instagram: Colleen: Kettlebell Specialist (@iamcolleenconlon) • Instagram photos and videos
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged podcast by Damaged Parents where body dysmorphic determined kettlebell swinging people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way.
I would venture to say it's closer to 100%. Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than. Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it.
There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is you. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. You who stares directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover your purpose.
You are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Colleen Conlon. She has many roles in her life daughter, sister, wife, cousin, and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with dysmorphia and self-limiting beliefs and how she found health and healing. Let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We have got, Colleen Conlon. She's a virtual fitness entrepreneur who specializes in helping women overcome self limiting beliefs by mastering kettlebells. As a girl, she struggled with an eating disorder, multiple abdominal surgeries
and lacked confidence as the woman she is today. She has built a six figure virtual business set and beat a Guinness book world record with kettlebells and has never felt more confident in herself and her ability to help empower others. Her advice has been featured in publications, such as the New York post women's health, dragon door, publications, and many more.
You can find her at https://colleenconlon.com or on Instagram. That's her favorite social media @iamcolleenconlon. Colleen welcome to the show.
[00:02:54] Collen Conlon: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:55] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I'm super excited to hear your journey because who would have thought that. I okay. Let me just put it this way into, especially in today's world, body dysmorphia, I think is a normal, a normal thing for men and women and especially for teens, but I don't think I ever clearly thought through how far that could go.
And as I'm looking at, what's happened a little bit in your life, but I can't wait for you to tell the audience about I'm thinking. Holy crap. I'm in trouble. If I don't start making sure I address this with my teens now.
[00:03:35] Collen Conlon: Yes.
[00:03:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah. did something happen to trigger the dysmorphia and the bulemia.
[00:03:42] Collen Conlon: Yeah.
So when I was. 11, my best friend pulled me aside one day and she said, Colleen, I think everybody would like you better if you were skinny. And then she taught me how to make myself throw up with the toothbrush. So that was really the big moment where everything switched, but leading up until that point, I was never, I was never the super skinny kid growing up.
I wouldn't say I was overweight, but, I was a fuller kid and I took dance classes and I had one teacher who used to refer to me as the elephant, because I just didn't know how to control my body when I would come out of a jumping dance moves. I had a couple of interesting comments from my parents, as it related to what I was eating, growing up.
There were a lot of mixed messages around that because we would get a lot of fast food, but then if I wanted more food, there would be comments about like, wow, Colleen like eats a lot of food. And then at this point when my friend made that comment to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I guess there's something really wrong.
Cause the comments not just coming from. My friend, it's coming from my parent. It's coming from my dance teacher and then hearing it from her really kind of started to shake me. But I, I never really thought that there was something wrong with me. However, I moved a lot growing up. So I ended up moving 13 times before I went away to college. And at age 11, I had already been in about five different elementary schools.
[00:05:15] Damaged Parents: Right now. That's what? Fifth grade? Fourth grade?
[00:05:17] Collen Conlon: That's fifth grade going into sixth grade for me.
[00:05:20] Damaged Parents: Okay. So almost every year of
[00:05:22] Collen Conlon: There's a new school. Yeah.
So for me it was everything to feel like I fit in. I didn't want to do anything where I felt excluded because moving around so much, it was really hard to make friends. And when that girl made that comment to me, I was like, well, she's my best friend. So she's saying people are going to like me better.
I better get on top of it. And from there. I started waking up at 4:30 AM to work out before I went to school, I would spend hours just trying to burn as many calories as I could on the elliptical or that treadmill. I would do a lot of crunches. I wasn't doing any type of strength training at the time because, for one, I had no idea what that kind of stuff was, but I would just watch what my mom was doing to, stay in shape and be thin. In my household growing up, I found out later in life that both of my parents struggled with an eating disorder. My mom struggled with anorexia. My dad struggled with bulemia and we just had so many diet foods in our house, or like hundred calorie healthy snacks or diet, this diet that.
[00:06:30] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and this is I'm going to interrupt you now, just like I promised, but this is at a time when they're like the food was really changing in it as far as what you could get at the grocery store. So a lot more processed foods, a lot more low fat foods, a lot more corn syrup. I'm thinking like, I mean, I grew up my mom, also was very worried about weight. And so we also found that and the comments so I can totally relate to that.
[00:06:59] Collen Conlon: I think a lot of people can. I mean, it was like a whole period of time. So I'm 29. So during that time, you know, south beach diet bars were all over our house. it seems like at that point, that's when, like all of the it's a hundred calories for this snack pack was what you could get at the grocery store.
And what's crazy is, you know, my mom was a group fitness instructor. My dad's a doctor. And you would imagine that growing up in this type of a household, everything would be super healthy. And I believe my parents did the best that they could, but . For me. I mean, I don't have any kids right now, but like that's not healthy.
[00:07:35] Damaged Parents: Yeah, my mom was a nurse. And so I just go back to thinking what they were really pushing nutrition-wise and thinking that well, they know , the quote-unquote they because that's what we're hearing in society. and then if it's not working physically, we must be doing it wrong and get that.
Maybe isn't true.
And so with a doctor and she was a fitness instructor, right. Your mom. Oh. And they're struggling too. It's so nice to hear that. It is so nice.
[00:08:05] Collen Conlon: It's interesting, I'm a fitness professional, but I don't have any type of background as it relates to nutrition. I actually work with a nutrition coach for myself at this point in my life because. You don't know what you don't know. And what's very frustrating is there's so much mixed information out there, especially on social media these days, that it's really important that, if your weight or your nutrition or your somebody who, like me has overcome an eating disorder, it's just really important that.
You know what the actual facts are and the way you do that is by looking to that expert and realizing that, your goals are not a one size fits all. If you want something, that's going to be very specifically catered to you. You need to, you need to find that expert person who can help just you not trying to help general population.
[00:08:56] Damaged Parents: Right. I love how you say that. Just you, because I think a lot of times we forget that we're individual people and. What works for one person may not work for another person, which is maybe that's why there's such confusing information out there.
[00:09:10] Collen Conlon: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely research and reason as to why somebody might try and eat one way over another. But again, unless, you know, a person's full history, a person's goals, their medical history, the activities that they go without on a day-to-day basis. It's really hard to say that this is going to work for every single person.
[00:09:29] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And that's so easy to forget because you know, you see what your friends doing sometimes. And it's like, but if I just do that, I will get those results. Right. And that's what you were thinking. If I just, vomit, then maybe I will finally get these results that I've been looking for.
And you've been getting this message around your whole, I mean, it was really all over your life at that point. ,
[00:09:51] Collen Conlon: Yeah. And it's really sad. Cause at that point in time, a child's body is changing so much. You don't want to restrict a child's food at that point. And I'm very grateful that everything worked out the way it worked out, but it definitely, it was a really hard thing for me I ended up dealing with bulemia for.
About 10 years.
[00:10:14] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Now. 10 years. So it took you 10 years to a point of where you recognize maybe this isn't a healthy way to do this, or what happened at the end of that 10 years that you're like, Ooh, this isn't good.
[00:10:26] Collen Conlon: There were a lot of things that were going on. I mean, in the midst of, so let's see from. Like age 11 to about 20. I ended up having three of my four abdominal surgeries. Within a month and a half of each other, and they were all major operations. so I had my appendix taken out. Then I ended up having an ovarian cyst taken out two weeks later, there was an abscess.
I almost died. They had to go back in, cleared that out. And then about three weeks after that, they ended up taking out one of my ovaries and fallopian tubes. None of this has anything to do with the eating disorder. However, I was so used to. Being able to wake up, work out and, see my body. Like I had all this control over my body.
At this point I couldn't sit up out of bed by myself. It took me about three months before I could actually walk on my own again, without needing the support of one of my parents.
[00:11:22] Damaged Parents: so you're literally in bed. You can't really sit up without help. I mean, it's probably a lot of quiet time is going on there.
[00:11:32] Collen Conlon: It's really just sad. It's it's really sad. there.
was a lot of Twilight. Again, I'm 29. So Twilight it was like a really big thing back then. I remember just, watching Twilight and feeling totally out of control. After having any type of major procedure, your body's very puffy for a long period of time.
So it was very strange to. Not see what I was so used to seeing and having control over for X amount of time,
[00:11:59] Damaged Parents: Were you angry and frustrated then after the surgeries
[00:12:02] Collen Conlon: totally angry and frustrated. The other thing that was really frustrating was I went to college for musical theater. So it took a really long time to have the lung capacity back to be able to sing. And in the midst of that, if you're bulimic it's hard enough to sing because your throat is constantly on fire from all of that acid so there were a lot of challenges throughout that point, but I was just trying to find a new way to get control back.
[00:12:34] Damaged Parents: So you had the bulemia, you had the surgeries. Were you still performing , the bulemia I'm not sure what to call it right now, but you know, making yourself vomit after the
surgeries.
[00:12:45] Collen Conlon: not immediately afterwards. So I would say after all of the surgeries.
that was my junior year of high school for like the next year and a half. My focus was more so on. Exercising a lot and really limiting what I was eating. And I remember getting super skinny after that. Like I was barely visible.
And then I went away to college and I ended up having a roommate who also had an eating disorder
[00:13:11] Damaged Parents: When you say barely visible real quick before we get to the roommate, because this just popped in my mind. I mean, were your bone sticking out and things like that?
[00:13:19] Collen Conlon: My bones weren't sticking out, but it was very clear that it was very clear that I was not Okay.
There were points. So again, I moved 13 times before I went away to college. So I was continuing to move around a bunch. So there would be certain times where I would gain a little more weight and then I'd lose weight and gain a little bit.
And then I lose it. I gained some weight after the surgeries well, I mean, I didn't gain weight after the surgeries, but I looked significantly bigger from all the puffiness in my stomach, not my arms, my arms, and my legs looked like twigs, but in my stomach and my stomach just got really, really small.
[00:13:56] Damaged Parents: so you, then you moved away to college.
[00:13:59] Collen Conlon: And I moved away to college.
and I had a roommate who also had an eating disorder, which was probably just like one of the worst things, because we would encourage each other to make ourselves sick.
[00:14:10] Damaged Parents: Oh, wow. At first I was thinking maybe it was serendipitous because you would heal together, but
it, it was quite the opposite.
[00:14:18] Collen Conlon: It was the opposite.
I mean, so we went to college for musical theater, so everybody's, fighting to stand out, fighting to be, the most talented, the prettiest, the most charismatic, the thinnest. So it definitely did not help. And at that point in time, being around somebody else, there were different things that I was trying that I hadn't
tried before, like I had, at that point beginning of college, I was playing a lot with laxatives because that's what my roommate was doing. It wasn't until I met my boyfriend, who's my now husband who was a fitness professional, who did have a background with nutrition that anything changed.
So once I met him, He started questioning the things I was doing. Like it's not really healthy. And what is, what is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? And it wasn't until, you know, I had him questioned me that anything started to change and it was a really slow change, but it was at that point when I started to realize that, you know, maybe there is a better way at this point.
I was exhausted. I was exhausted waking up so early for so long. I remember. At this point, I'm not even an adult, I'm just like this person for the past 10 years, starting at age 11, who's like waking up at 4:30 AM I just like, I don't want to do this as an adult. I remember one of our first conversations.
I was like, I want a job where I can sleep in until 12 o'clock because I'm just so tired. Which is, I think it's kind of funny at this point. I was so tired of of doing things the way I was doing it for so long that the fact that he said that, no, there's a different way.
You can eat differently. You can work out differently and you'll probably get, the results you want without it being such a, such a high stressor.
[00:16:05] Damaged Parents: it sounded like that all started with questions though. It didn't start with here's how to fix it.
[00:16:10] Collen Conlon: Yes. it.
started with questions, which I really appreciated. Cause I remember at one point my parents seemed a little suspicious of me and we never had like a long conversation about what was going on.
But I remember one day my dad was like, do I need to send you away? And that terrified me because I didn't want to be sent away. I didn't want to be alone.
[00:16:32] Damaged Parents: yeah.
[00:16:32] Collen Conlon: And. I think, I think, for anybody who's listening to this, especially to a parent who might have a child who they suspect might have an eating disorder, you don't want to scare the person.
You just want to ask them, you know, why are you doing this? What do you get out of this? And it was that questioning that made me feel like I could be a part of a conversation. Instead of just being banished or something. Somebody was suspecting that I was doing
[00:16:59] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and you didn't have to be wrong, then it could just be a new possibility.
[00:17:04] Collen Conlon: exactly.
[00:17:05] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Okay. At some point. So you meet the boyfriend, he enlightens you. When do you really, how long does it take you? You said it was a slow process. I mean, did it take a couple of years for you to start going? Oh, wow.
Okay. I can do this.
[00:17:20] Collen Conlon: Close to five.
[00:17:21] Damaged Parents: Hmm.
[00:17:22] Collen Conlon: So at this point, I'm now working in the fitness industry and it's so sad because, I know So many past colleagues at this point where you assume your fitness trainer or your fitness instructor, they had it all figured out most of the time, they don't, you know, it's so easy to give advice to clients and it can be really hard to take advice and believe it for yourself.
And for me, I was so conditioned to think that there was only one way and truth of the matter is there were a lot of other ways I could have gone about. Being at a weight, a size that I wanted to be at, but the bigger thing that I want to eventually get to is the fact that no matter how skinny I was, I never felt like people like to be more. And if anything, I liked to be less because it was such a chore to be counting calories or limiting calories and trying to, sleep longer. So I wouldn't feel hunger pains. And it really just felt like I couldn't live my life because I was so concerned about, well, am I going to need to eat?
[00:18:26] Damaged Parents: Yeah, it just makes me think of all the people in my life. Wait, what you just said. I don't love them for the way their body is shaped. I'd love them. Cause they're freaking amazing people, and their, soul is beautiful and it's so hard to. I think it's one thing for me to say it in. And for me, I can believe it, but it took a long time getting to that point where it was even believable.
Oh, you mean you can just love me. I don't have to look a certain way. I don't have to be a certain weight but because I'm me, I'm worthy of love.
[00:19:04] Collen Conlon: Exactly we all are. I am a very big believer that, if there is a weight, if there is a size that you want and you're doing it for the right reasons, Then there's no reason why you can't, work out and eat a specific way to healthily achieve those goals. But at the end of the day, nobody really cares if you're, five or 10 pounds heavier or lighter than you are on a given day.
[00:19:29] Damaged Parents: Well, and I think if you don't love yourself too, if you don't love yourself, what's the value. If you can't be happy at that lower weight or that higher weight for some people, right. then what's the point.
[00:19:41] Collen Conlon: Yeah. So it ended up taking me close to five years after I met my boyfriend now husband, and it was just a really slow process because at this point, I leave musical theater and I start a career in fitness and I'm teaching all of these high energy classes and I'm like living on protein bars and smoothies, and I'm exhausted.
And I'm hearing, what he's saying. And I begin to do some strength training, but I'm not fully committed into it.
[00:20:15] Damaged Parents: So you haven't really bought into strength. Training is a good thing.
[00:20:18] Collen Conlon: haven't pulled
the bottle. I like, I start to dabble in it and just like, it's fine, but it doesn't really feel like I'm doing anything. Like I would do a string training session and I wouldn't sweat.
So in my head at that point, I was thinking, oh, well, if I'm not sweating, I'm probably not working hard enough, which is like a total myth. Most of my training sessions, most of my clients training sessions. There's like not a whole lot of sweat. And a lot of times that's the kind of stuff that's going to give you bigger results depending on what your goals are. And it wasn't until I started my job at this kettlebell studio that anything changed.
[00:20:57] Damaged Parents: Okay. So what even got you to think about going to this kettlebell studio in the first place? Like, I mean, cause you've broken records, so I'm thinking something, I mean, did you just walk by and you're like, oh, that looks interesting. What happened?
[00:21:14] Collen Conlon: I'm telling you, Angela. I was destined to do big things with kettlebells. I was destined because I had absolutely no interests. I, had absolutely no desire to do anything with kettlebells. At this point in time, I'm 25 and I'm already getting burnt out of being a full time fitness professional.
So at this point I'm still like waking up at 4:30 AM. My days aren't ending until about eight o'clock
[00:21:39] Damaged Parents: Well, cause you've got a split in the day, right? It's got the, your morning clients and your evening, clients are just, you had them all. You were one of those all
[00:21:48] Collen Conlon: Morning, afternoon and evening. So you have like a two to three hour gap in between morning to the afternoon and the afternoons for the evening. So it's just, it's really long days. And those gaps in between, it's just never enough time to get done. The other things you want. And at the time I was living in New York city.
So I was going from. One side to the other uptown downtown didn't nothing was near my apartment. So my life just felt like I was a gym, gypsy, just living out of a backpack every day. So I said to myself, what would be great is if I could get some type of a managerial position, how to gym, and there was an opportunity to manage trainers at this kettlebell hit studio. So, Yeah, I'm doing this just because I think it's going to make life easier. So I totally BS my way through the interview. The guys asked me all these questions about kettlebells and I'm, it's a total mess, but I ended up getting, I ended up getting the job. And one of my roles is to teach a couple of classes in additioning to managing the trainers that I have.
And one of the trainers came up to me one day.
and he was like, just so you know, we all know you have no idea what we're doing with the kettle bell at the time. I didn't think the kettlebell was any different than a dumbbell. And something really important to share is you can use. A kettlebell like a dumbbell.
You can't use a dumbbell like a kettlebell. There's a very specific technique. The type of kettlebell training that I practice is called hard style and it's where we are lifting relatively heavy weight, very quickly for very low reps. So at this point I feel super insecure that this person is calling me out.
But I realized that. Yeah.
they're right. I have no idea what I'm doing. So this was one of the first times I asked for help and that's something else that I want to highlight along my journey. I never asked for help. I was the kind of person where I thought, you know, I had to do this all on my own.
I felt like I was keeping a secret as it related to my body for so long that uh, I came out to my parents and said, you know, I had this issue that they were Just gonna send me away. And that was scary. Then when I met,
[00:23:59] Damaged Parents: Just real quick. So even in learning how to become a fitness trainer, I think there's tests and things like that, right? Like that you took it upon yourself and just, it wasn't about anyone helping you. It was just that gotta to do this and I've got to do it on my own. Like this. That sounds so lonely.
[00:24:17] Collen Conlon: It was, I was very fortunate to have a few mentors along the way, it was a situation where I didn't feel comfortable asking. More than I felt like they were allowing me to ask. So I was in a couple of different programs and like, if it was during class time and I had a question I'd ask, but I would have some of those moments where like the person would make me feel like my question was stupid, so I would stop.
I did, but I did have a couple of really great people along the way.
[00:24:45] Damaged Parents: But it wasn't the norm, the norm was to do it alone because if you had more questions, then you felt stupid. It's kind of what I'm hearing.
[00:24:55] Collen Conlon: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Collen Conlon: So this was really one of the first times where I was like, no, I'm, I'm going to have this trainer train me and teach me how to do this. So that. Trust that I know what I'm doing, that they're going to listen to me. And at the same time, so I don't hurt anyone. I never wanted to hurt anyone.
And, we start working together and it was really freaking frustrating. I'll tell you, like learning how to use kettlebells is. One of the hardest things I've ever done. The reason why it's so hard is because you have to be so aware of your body and space. There's so many little details such as creating tension in the right areas, the right type of breathing, the right type of timing with the breath or the tension.
it literally just feels like, you're patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. And that's what these sessions would feel like for, Close to like close to 12 weeks.
[00:25:50] Damaged Parents: Oh, wow. So it was just super, you couldn't get the timing that patting the head and the rubbing the belly at the same. It just wasn't connecting.
[00:25:59] Collen Conlon: No, this slow process, it was a slow process. it's a slow process for the people that I train now. Like it is a skill. It is really a skill. You're not going to just like pick stuff up, you know, day one, it takes time and. In doing this, it was crazy because simultaneously I'm engaged at this point and I'm planning my wedding and my situation with my family, my situation with my husband's family at the time was very chaotic.
This was one of those periods of time where I totally let myself go with. I was eating pizza. I was eating chocolate. I was drinking beer like five nights a week. And what was so crazy is I'm doing all this stuff with the kettlebells and my body is changing. I'm actually improving my body composition as it relates to decreasing my body fat and increasing my muscle mass, which was very strange to me because in my mind, I'm doing this in like, not a very healthy way.
Like it's not healthy to be consuming alcohol, almost every single night of the week. And I was kind of just amazed to see what was happening. But the other two things that were so amazing about the process regardless of by composition was, after I had these a general surgeries, I couldn't feel my apps.
[00:27:16] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Collen Conlon: They were totally numb. Like, you know, when you get Novacane at the dentist, that's what my stomach felt like for years. And then once we started using these kettlebells, I slowly started to get the sensation back in my abs. And then on top of that, I hadn't done any type of strength training before.
And this trainer one day was like, go get up on the bar. Let's see you do a pull up. And I was like, I can't do a whole. He was like, yes, you can. I now say, no, I can't. He was like, just humor me, try. And I got a pull up and I was like, how in the world is this happening right now? He was like, because you understand how to use Tension and breath. and your lats are so much stronger now than they've ever been. That's why
[00:27:56] Damaged Parents: Tension and breadth is what he says.
[00:27:59] Collen Conlon: tension, breath. And at this point I've spent all this time building up my lats and the Muscle that you need to be able to access and use for the pull up. So it was just, it was very eye opening to see, you don't have to wake up super early. You don't have to be, crazy restricted with what you're eating.
If you can start to incorporate strength training. And I love strength training as it relates to kettlebells a little bit more, cause there's more of like a cardio element to it. Your body can change. You can, feel better posts all of these surgeries. And you're just trying to believe that you can do the impossible.
And that's what that pull up was for me. I thought that was an impossible ask and it.
wasn't, that's when my life really started to change. And I started to realize that, you know, maybe, maybe I can do hard things.
[00:28:46] Damaged Parents: Mm. Hmm. Now had you, before the pull-up, had you already started to love kettlebells or was it still.
[00:28:55] Collen Conlon: No. I was like, okay, I guess this is fine. I'll stick with it. There's another body weight skill that I got. And that's, that was really the moment where I was like, oh no, these cattle have to be everything. There's an exercise called the human flag. So for anybody who's listening, if you don't know what that is, imagine that you're hanging from a pull up bar.
So if you're hanging from a pull up bar you're hanging for early. So human flag is when you're horizontally
[00:29:22] Damaged Parents: Ooh, that would be hard.
[00:29:24] Collen Conlon: Yeah.
It looks like you're flying because all you're doing is holding onto these bars and your lights are extended out and you're in the straight line. I went to a progressive calisthenic certification and I was able to do it. And again, I was like, I don't know how I can do this right now. The only thing I could say is I was doing all of this grip strength training.
I was doing all of these single arm swings. And how do you hold? So my weeks were working harder than they've ever had to in the past. And I have all this latch strength. I understand tension, and I understand breath. And being able to do that, that's when I was like, okay, I need to do some more with these kettlebells.
However, while all of this is happening, I'm still a full-time fitness professional. I ended up leaving that studio. I realized I really don't like managing people really don't and I go back to working at a bunch of different gyms and then COVID hit. And I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
And there was this girl who I was following, who, she's a business coach and she had this business coaching program. And I remember reaching out to her asking like, do you think I could actually make a living, starting some type of a virtual fitness business. And she was like, absolutely. So I remember signing up for her course and I remember telling my dad and my dad was like, well, how much are you paying for this?
And I was like paying $5,000 for this course. And he was like, oh my gosh, that's so stupid. Get your money back. I remember feeling like so bad because you know, when your parent tells you, it's not a good idea, at least for me up until very recently, have I been able to separate that? I respect my parents, but I realized that my parents don't have it all figured out.
And I don't think there was anything wrong with that. But up until this point, I, I felt really bad. And I was like, well, maybe I should ask for the money back. Maybe I shouldn't do this. And then after I finished this course with this coach and it releasing my first program and I made $24,000,
[00:31:23] Damaged Parents: Wow.
[00:31:23] Collen Conlon: and I remember getting to share that with my dad, not to be like in your face. But to show like, well, look, what's possible. Look what I did.
And It's hard when, you know, just sharing all this thinking about, growing up and even that incident it's, it's hard when you, you don't fully have that support from all of the people around you.
[00:31:44] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Collen Conlon: It never stopped me from still taking chances.
And unfortunately, you know, with the food stuff, it took a lot longer to change the relationship with my body. But, you know, once I saw what my body was capable of doing, these crazy skills, I was like, oh my gosh, my body is freaking awesome.
I Love my body. I don't. And at that point I was like, I don't care about being skinny.
I care about being strong enough that I can do these things that I think are impossible.
[00:32:12] Damaged Parents: Mm.
[00:32:13] Collen Conlon: And with that mindset flip, while this pandemic is happening, I'm no longer running around the city. And having this full-time virtual business that I'm building up. So I'm really able to focus in on my training.
And I remember saying to myself, I want to do something. I want to do something that I think is impossible.
[00:32:30] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:32:31] Collen Conlon: I just want to see, like, What can I do? And I ended up getting this idea that I gonna, you know, do something relating to the Guinness book of world records. And I hired a coach and I ended up setting a record.
So I set the record for heaviest weight lifted via kettle, via kettlebell, Turkish, get up with the meat hour for female. So I'm doing Turkish get-ups nonstop for an hour.
[00:32:58] Damaged Parents: What is that? I have no
[00:33:01] Collen Conlon: Yeah.
[00:33:01] Damaged Parents: what that is.
[00:33:02] Collen Conlon: It's hard to explain it. Basically, you lay down and you stand up and you lay down and you stand up and you lay down and you stand up and you're doing it while holding a kettlebell over your head.
[00:33:14] Damaged Parents: Oh, wow. That sounds hard.
[00:33:17] Collen Conlon: It's really tiring. Even just the thought of having to stand up and lay down nonstop for an hour, kind of loan is tiring. Yeah,
[00:33:29] Damaged Parents: tell me it was early in the morning. That's just me being a little bit of a smart Alec.
[00:33:34] Collen Conlon: did. The beauty of doing a world record is you can do it any time of day.
[00:33:38] Damaged Parents: That's awesome.
[00:33:39] Collen Conlon: But you know, we went into it. So I hired a coach and we went into it thinking that I was going to do it one time, one time only that's it. I unfortunately did not read the fine print and a week before the event is when I learned that I had to do a single arm press to get the kettlebell over my head.
So again, Turkish get up. It's an exercise where we lay down and we stand up. Now, when you're laying down, you have to get the belt over your head. From the bell being next to you on the floor. So the way we train it in hard style is you use two hands to grab the kettlebell and then bring it over your head.
And then you're using one arm. I needed to do this with one arm to get it over my head. So I'm basically, so now I have to do all of these single arm chest presses, which I was not prepared to do. And, you know, staying at right now to somebody who doesn't know what this is, that really doesn't sound like it should be that much harder.
It is significantly. Harder. So I ended up setting this record And there's a part of me that's really proud because, you know, he did it, but I'm really disappointed because I knew I could do a lot better if I knew I had to do that part. So we ended up training. And about five months later, I go out it again and I break it and I get close to getting an extra third of the kilos lifted than I did in the first attempt
[00:35:07] Damaged Parents: Oh,
wow. And it's all the kettlebell is also is heavy, right? Like,
[00:35:12] Collen Conlon: I use a 35 pound kettlebell.
[00:35:15] Damaged Parents: okay. And you're having to stand up and lay down, keeping it over your head, basically.
[00:35:20] Collen Conlon: No. So you have to bring it down from over your head and then press it back up over your head and then bring it down and then press it back. Stand up, lie down, bring it down, press it out. Stand up, lie down, bring it down, press it up. Yeah.
[00:35:34] Damaged Parents: So it's not just static. It's you are moving all of your body.
[00:35:40] Collen Conlon: Yeah.
[00:35:41] Damaged Parents: Wow.
[00:35:42] Collen Conlon: It was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever had to do not be like, there was never a point where I was like, I can't do the next rep, but there were these points where I was like, I don't like, I don't want to do this.
[00:35:56] Damaged Parents: you were setting the record or
[00:35:58] Collen Conlon: Oh.
[00:35:58] Damaged Parents: to set the record.
[00:36:00] Collen Conlon: While I was in my pause in the second attempt to.
[00:36:04] Damaged Parents: Oh, okay.
[00:36:05] Collen Conlon: Now, when I said it, I was like, this is great whatever number I walk away with. It's great. And my coach was like, there's absolutely no pressure. You're going to set this right now and it's going to be awesome. And then we're going to go get pancakes and it's going to be a great day,
[00:36:18] Damaged Parents: Yeah, but the second time.
[00:36:21] Collen Conlon: it was a totally different ball game.
So when I set the record, I did 122 reps within the hour and I had like 30 seconds to rest before I would go again. So I do like two reps and then I rest doing this. I ended up doing 188 reps. I didn't have any breaks.
[00:36:40] Damaged Parents: Oh, wow.
[00:36:41] Collen Conlon: So it was just moving nonstop. And there's like, in my head, I kept telling myself. Stop.
Stop. Stop. You can't do this. Stop. Stop. Stop. I remember at one point I set the belt down or I just started screaming at myself. You can do this. How long you stay in the moment. Colleen, you can do this, but it was so hard because you know, inside internally, my voice just kept saying no, no, no. And I had to, verbally say it to myself so I could hear it,
[00:37:10] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And as you're saying that, I mean, you're giving us a great example of it, an event that you'd trained for where this has happened. I'm thinking that same voice had been with you for a long time, though.
[00:37:22] Collen Conlon: Yes. It's interesting because within that hour, I would say every single time I felt like I couldn't or like I wasn't good enough or, you know, that best friend I have when I was 11, she came up during the event. Like every single challenge along my journey up until that point showed up. And every single rep felt like it just felt like a win that I can overcome.
I can keep pushing and I will be able to move forward in a positive direction. And the only thing I can't do is I can't stop and I can't let the fear of, anything get in the way.
[00:37:56] Damaged Parents: you couldn't let those negative thoughts even. And those are, I mean, if we think about they're not even things, they're just their thoughts. I mean, they exist, but they are. So we give them so much power sometimes. And here you are. With all this weight on you quite literally, right. It's pressure. And it's all showing up again.
I mean, that probably was completely unexpected.
[00:38:21] Collen Conlon: I was not expecting that whatsoever. I created a playlist that I had been working with since the first attempt. And I was like, I'm just going to sing these songs in my head and in an hour I'll be done and you'll be fine. And It was almost haunting.
[00:38:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Do you feel like it helped you process
through some of that stuff?
[00:38:41] Collen Conlon: Yes. You know, It's so interesting. I was telling my coach, I feel like I left my body at points. And when I came back at the end, I felt reborn in a sense. I felt like, no, I can handle hard things. I have the endurance. I have that ability ability to be resilient. I can do this. I just, I can't, I can't give up on myself.
[00:39:03] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
That you were able to explain and tell us about how it came up during the event, because I think a lot of times in life, hard things happen and that pressure comes on and all of a sudden something shows up and maybe in everyone's life, it's not a competition. Maybe it's just tough.
Things are showing up. And all of a sudden this also shows up and now it's like this old trauma is here and. Coping and dealing and yet it's, you can still make it. So I just love that part of your story. It's like recognizing that yeah, it might be a kettlebell competition and it might be in day-to-day life where that stuff's going to come up and we can still do it. We're still going to make it
[00:39:50] Collen Conlon: that's. one of the things that I always try and highlight with my clients. And one of the things that I find so beautiful about kettlebells specifically with hard style and specifically the way I train my clients is, you know, we're setting these goals and every single time that, you know, we hit one of these goals, it's, this realization that you can do that hard thing, you can overcome that challenging obstacle, that thing that you think is impossible. no no no no no you you're, you're capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for. And. We don't always have control of the things that come up in our day to day life. But when you are continuously training yourself to see that, no, I can overcome, I can get to the next level with my bell. It starts to translate to other areas of your life
and that's one of the things that I see with my clients all the time, whether it's, you know, feeling the confidence that you can ask for the promotion at work whether it's, feeling confident that you can leave the unhealthy relationship, even if it means you're going to be a single parent for awhile. There's a lot of different things that come up. And I think, training is such a incredible way to see that. No, I can overcome I will be okay.
[00:40:59] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So the top three tips or tools that it sounds like you could apply to any struggle. So I'm just going to go top three tips or tools. Give them to us.
[00:41:10] Collen Conlon: Also the number one thing is you have to ask for help. You know, You can do anything, but you don't have to do it alone. And for a long time, I felt like I couldn't ask for help. And I was all by myself. And once I started asking for help, my life changed. So that's number one. Number two is keep taking action when we just sit for too long.
And I think it's important that sometimes we do have to sit. Sometimes we do have to reflect and be patient, but if we sit for too long, it's going to be really hard to. Find the inspiration and motivation to continue to move forward. And then the last thing I would say is, just always have hope because if you have that, you're going to see that light and it's never going to get dark.
And I've had a lot of moments where the light got super dark, but I never gave up on hope. And I think that's why that light burns very brightly for me. right now.
[00:42:03] Damaged Parents: Yeah, that's a lovely perspective. Thank you so much, Colleen Conlon, you can find her at https://colleenconlon.com and on Instagram @iamcolleenconlon. Thank you so much Colleen for being on the show.
[00:42:17] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Colleen about how she learned to love her body. We especially liked when she explained how she accidentally found kettlebells. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then
