People always seem to link the verb “quitting” to failing, to not being able to complete a specific task to its entirety, as if quitting is a bad thing. The day that I “quit” marked a huge turning point in my adult life (possibly the biggest turning point, even bigger than becoming a mother!) and one that I still can’t believe I actually achieved. I believe the day I quit was the beginning of a whole set of changes in my life; the food I chose to put in my body, choosing to exercise every day, having a hell of a lot of spare money to undertake new hobbies, reducing my anxiety levels remarkably… I could go on forever. I am incredibly proud to announce to the whole world that I quit smoking on March 12, 2014 at 7.30am. I had been a smoker for ten years (I am now 31) and when I started I was into the whole “I must be thin to fit in” belief. Then somebody at work decided to tell me that smoking cigarettes speeds up your metabolism, so you can eat whatever you want, have a smoke and you won’t put on weight. *Slap Forehead* moment if ever there was one! How ridiculously stupid can you get??? Yeah, let’s not only clog up our arteries with greasy, oily junk food, but we’ll add some toxic carcinogens and lung cancer to the mix as well, geez…. At the end of every year I would say to myself, “this is the last one, this is the last one,” but of course, it never was. I managed to give up while I was pregnant, that was easy. What wasn’t easy was staying off then once I came home, had a newborn who didn’t sleep, AT ALL, suffered severe post natal depression and anxiety, and then found out said newborn was starving hungry because I had no milk, enter feeling like a massive failure as a new mother and back to leaning n the old friend cigarettes to “help” get me through. What I didn’t realise at the time, but that I realise now, was that my “old friend” was in fact one of my biggest enemies when it came to my mental health.

Honestly, I can’t say it was ONE single thing that led me to eventually kicking the habit, it was a chain of events I think. Since having my two boys, my greatest fear has been something taking me away from them, so while I was smoking, I felt guilty that I was possibly slowly but surely making sure that I would be taken away from them prematurely. Still, I would think of that, and the anxiety of it would make me want a cigarette. Ironic, isn’t it? Secondly, our dear elderly neighbour passed away late last year from chronic emphysema and advanced lung cancer, it wasn’t pretty. She was only in her early 70’s and a wonderful, caring lady, her only downfall was picking up a cigarette when the dangers of them weren’t known. A couple of her final words to my partner and I were, “Please, please, give up. Don’t let this happen to you.” Thirdly, those two things continued to swirl around in my mind, yet, I continued to smoke. But the want to quit and the will to quit just weren’t working hand in hand. I went to a reflexology appointment (that is some amazing stuff right there) one evening and just broke down in tears out of nowhere rambling about my smoking and my fears, I didn’t see it then, but I do now, I was literally PETRIFIED. I made an appointment with my doctor who agreed to work with me on some strategies for quitting and advised me to purchase some nicotine patches, which I never actually used, I had a little plan of my own.

It wasn’t a total bed of roses, and yes, there were times I probably should have had this stuck to my forehead…

I’m sure just about everyone out there has heard of The Easyway To Quit Smoking, written by Allen Carr and like me, if you’ve heard about it, you’re probably a little bit sceptical, ok ALOT sceptical. But, I was now in the right mindset, I WANTED to quit and my willpower was catching up, I had nothing to lose, AT ALL, as I could borrow the book from my library, win/win! I started to read and instead of rolling my eyes, it all actually made sense, this guy knew his stuff. But was it enough to convince me to quit? I was due to finish the book, and therefore my addiction to the habit, the same day as my doctor told me that he suspected I had gall stones. Okay, so they don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but it was enough to give me a kick up the butt. That very night I finished the book, went to bed knowing that the following morning I would stub out my last cigarette EVER!! If I was quitting, it was to be for good. None of this “one every now and then”, no “social smoking”, it was all going to be over, and I actually felt good about it.

At 7.30am the next morning (I know, I know, the thought of it now makes me want to vomit), I lit up the final “cancer stick”, whilst downloading an app to assist me in the process. I didn’t even finish the whole cigarette, it tasted vile to me and I began to wonder if the book had some sort of brainwashing power. Throughout that day, I didn’t even have to try and resist the urge to head to the local shop to buy another packet of cigarettes, it seemed all way too easy. That night my partner said, “do you want this last smoke?”. To which I simply replied, “no thanks, I’ve quit”. He was shocked, but had known of my wanting to do it since our neighbour passed away, and he joined me in the quitting process.

So far, after 172 days smoke-free, we have not lapsed once, nor looked back. My app (which, to anyone in Australia, is available on the app stores of both Apple and Android, is called “My Quit Buddy”) tells me that I have avoided 19,271mg of tar (and that’s without all the other nasty chemicals) and have saved $2271.00au. And those figures are just based on my smoking alone, you could almost double that to include my partner as well. The money that hasn’t been wasted on the 2753 cigarettes I would have smoked on my own has been spent around the house putting in a veggie garden, building a house to keep some chickens, renovating our bathroom and purchasing better quality foods to enhance our newer, healthier lifestyles. I’m not here to preach to anyone the evils or dangers of smoking, as I don’t believe that works anyway. I simply just wanted to share my experience in that if you want to do something, not just quitting smoking, anything at all that you want to achieve, you can do it if you put your mind to it. And if you do want to quit smoking, DO IT! I can’t say that it will be as easy for you as it was for me, but once the initial three weeks are up, you’ll be feeling a hell of a lot better within yourself and your bank account will notice it, too. And please, if anyone wants to share their experiences on quitting, or attempting to quit, or anything else you have set your mind to and achieved, feel free to share, I just love hearing others stories of success :-).

Take Care and remember, never give up on giving up 😉
Lara xxx

Has It Really Been That Long???

Posted on August 29, 2014 by laraoneill777

I mean, really, has it??? Okay, admittedly it has been almost a year between my last blog post and this blog post, but it honestly doesn’t seem that long. I guess as the old saying goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun”!!! And looking back, although there have been some down times (if you are only new to my blog, you can find a little about my battle with depression and anxiety here) but I can tell you, without a word of a lie, that there have definitely been more up times, and that is all that we can really ask for isn’t it? But I swear that for every year you get older, the time goes by just that little bit quicker. Regardless, I am rambling, I came here this evening to blog, and to blog I shall ;-).

Believe it or not, throughout the past year of non-blogging-ness, the blog has still been in the back of my mind, not everyday, maybe once a week or so. Just a little, almost timid voice saying, “have you forgotten about me”? It soon quietens and heads back to its box when I give it “THE LOOK” and then I feel rather guilty for doing so… All jokes aside, I was loving doing my blogging, but at that point in time, it was becoming more of something I HAD to do, rather than something I WANTED to do. I originally started blogging to share my love of food, as a creative outlet (I have always loved to write) and as another kind of therapy for me, and it worked, for a little while. Even though my blog is entitled “Food, Family, Love, Life”, I really only focused on the one aspect of it, the food part. At the time, I chose the title because they were the four things I loved the most in my life (not in any necessary order, of course), and because it sounded good, but I didn’t think anyone would actually find “my life” that exciting to read about. However, I’ve been reading quite a few blogs of late, and find the ones people seem drawn to are the ones about people’s lives. Whether it be; someone struggling through adversity, another battling through an incurable illness, somebody making their life a success after being told they would amount to nothing but being a failure, all these “life” stories are what makes us, us, and we humans as a species are curious by nature. So we delve into these stories and we devour them, we really do. This, combined with the fact that the post mentioned above about my history was one of my most popular, is one of the reasons I have decided to change the way I write my blog.

Change number two, there have been a lot of changes go on in my life, the big one being the way I eat. Earlier in the year it was confirmed I had gallstones, and two weeks ago to the day, I had my gallbladder out via keyhole surgery. But between March and August, I had to find ways to keep the pain under control myself and I found that the biggest triggers for my gall stone attacks were lactose, gluten and fat. So, I became lactose free, gluten-free and started eating more raw foods and more cleanly, and it worked!!! I had hardly any pain in the couple of months leading up to the surgery and because I noticed the benefits in my body, I’ve decided to keep on with this lifestyle. Oh, and I’ve been reading up on “sugar”, too, and let me say this, I’m not a fan anymore. So, any foodie-type things I do post will be more gluten, lactose and sugar-free. But trust me when I say this, it doesn’t have to be boring!!!! Also, we’ve put in an amazing (if I do say so myself) veggie garden and we also have us some chickens now, so we are going all out to provide for ourselves as naturally as we can. Even if it’s just a little bit, I’m going to be happy knowing that my veggies are chemical free and my eggs are cruelty free, but we’ll have more about those couple of things in future blog posts ;-).

Love and family, could there be any better words in the English language that could make you feel as warm and as fuzzy as these two?? Okay, maybe some people aren’t as lucky as me, and when it comes to family I majorly received the winner’s share. My boys, my partner, my family, his family, I have been very blessed in those departments and they are all huge parts of my life, and they will be a regular feature of this blog, no blog would be complete without them. That is change number three.

Finally, change number four is that this blog is going to be what my starting intention of it was going to be, as a therapy for me and to maybe connect with some like-minded people (if there are actually any of you out there???). Writing this post alone has made me feel quite relaxed, quite happy and quite accomplished. And if those things are the main things I gain with each post, then I will be eternally grateful.

Take Care,
Lara xxx

Food For My Thoughts

Posted on August 1, 2013 by laraoneill777

This post is one I’ve been debating over for a couple of weeks now, “Should I? Shouldn’t I? Maybe next time….” But since a friend asked me the other day “Why do you cook so much?”, I feel that time has come. That question is one I get asked ALOT, and my answer is always the same, “Cooking is MY therapy”. Some people exercise, some people mediate, some read…I cook, and everyone else gets the benefits from it too ;-). But it hasn’t always been this way. Around 18 months ago, the time our second gorgeous boy was born, I can honestly say that I pretty much only cooked because you need to eat to survive. Meat and three veg was the standard, and, even though I’m ashamed to say it now, packaged and processed foods took up the majority of the space in our cupboards, fridge and freezer. I never baked, I never watched cooking programmes on TV and I never knew what a “Leek” looked like, much less a bulb of fennel! Man, how one little boy can change your life!

After I had our first son, Jaxon, in February of 2010, I copped a pretty awful case of Post-Natal Depression. Although, being a sufferer of depression on and off since 2000, myself and my family recognised the signs and we were able to get on top of it pretty quickly. Given my history, I went to my GP when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Zachary, who is now 17 months old, and discussed my worries about the recurrence of PND once he was born. He gave me a script and told me to start taking it as soon as Zac was born, and that is what I did. Right from the first day,I won’t lie, Zac was, ummm, well, he was “difficult”. He hardly slept, and if he did, he would be so restless that he’d wake himself up. Unlike most babies, if he had a feed he would then spend the next few hours screaming his head off,bringing his legs up this chest with his little face all puckered up and going BRIGHT red. If I would have let him, he would have fed 24/7, this was not right, this was not normal. The crunch came one afternoon, when he was two weeks old and to this day I thank the heavens that my mum was there. He had his bottle, and then started gagging, it was the worst sound imaginable. Then came the vomit, so much vomit, out every possible place it could come out of, so much so, that he choked on it, he couldn’t breathe, he actually started to turn blue. I panicked, which didn’t help matters, and mum told me to leave the room, take Jaxon, get in the car and go and get him a lactose free formula and make an appointment with the doctor (during this time she had turned him upside down, patting him on the back, and cleared all his airways). All of this continued for the next 4 or 5 weeks, during which time, I forget home many doctors visits we had. When finally, we got an appointment with a specialist, and, as I had suspected and tried to tell them all along, he was diagnosed with an allergy to dairy and soy, put on a prescription formula, and within one week, I had a new baby! It was unbelievable, and things should have been great, but that was just the beginning.

I guess I had been so busy and so focused on trying to get to the root of Zac’s problem, that I hadn’t had much time to let myself dwell or think about anything else. But after he started getting well again, I crashed and burned, it had all caught up with me. Panic attacks were rife, I was in tears more than once a day, and I was panicking about panicking! I was afraid to be alone with my boys in case something happened to me and they would be left vulnerable and scared and that no one would find them. My mind had gone walkabout. On feeling myself falling I went back to my gp, the medication I was on wasn’t working, so the dosage was put up. An anti-anxiety medication was added and things started to feel better, for awhile anyway…

During this sort of good phase, it was coming closer to the time for Zac to start solids (I started him at 4 months) and I thought, “wow! This isn’t going to be as easy as it was with Jaxon”. So I had to research, I joined allergy groups on Facebook, I started connecting with people whom I wouldn’t have otherwise connected with, I realised it was ok to ask for help if I wasn’t sure about something. It was as if one door opened to another door opening, etc, etc. I made some wonderful online friends through these groups, and they will be lifelong friends. And I found that food didn’t have to be only eaten for survival, it could be eaten for pure enjoyment, creating memories with the ones you love, and reliving past moments of your life that you thought you had forgotten about. I guess in a way, through Zac, I didn’t find food, food found me. And I am so happy that it did. Cooking is my therapy, my kitchen is my safe place, and it is the place I go to clear my head and to re-focus. I can guarantee that if I’m starting to feel a dark cloud seeping in or am having a bit of a mind fog, I can go to the kitchen, cook up something, and come back with my mind feeling as clear and as sharp as ever. And, everyone else gets to eat the food, too, so that’s a win/win ;-).

As I said, I did feel better for a little while, but not too long ago, only a couple of months actually, things got to breaking point. In the past 12 months my medication had been increased, decreased, changed, increased again, but it seemed no one would listen to me when I told them my symptoms. Then, one day, it felt as if I was destined to never feel 100% ever again, and I just sat on the floor and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. My partner was away for work, so my mum came running. My uncle made me an appointment with his doctor, and it was the best thing a human being could have ever done for me. In my new doctor I have found someone who takes his time, who listens, who looks at me when I talk instead of typing away at the computer, and as a result, I now have a “proper” diagnosis as to what fits my symptoms. Bipolar Type 2 Disorder, yep, no wonder the anti depressants weren’t doing their job all this time. I wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis, although hearing it from a professional kind of shook me a bit. But at the moment, the new medication, and hopefully the new therapy that will be starting soon, things are heading on the right direction and I’m beginning to get a bit of my self-confidence and my spark back :-).

So why do I cook so much?? This is why I cook so much; it plays a huge part in keeping my mental illness in check, it lifts my confidence, it helps me meet like-minded people whom I would’ve otherwise gone through life not knowing, and number one, it makes for one happy household!

Apologies for not having any reviews or recipes on this post, but I promise I’ll make up for it by having a super-awesome one next blog up 😉

Love To You All,
Lara xxx