Soul Mac

Soul mac and cheese.  I learned recently that another term for legit mac and cheese is Soul Macaroni and Cheese.

So not mac and cheese from a box.  And not my mom’s legendary, simple, everyday, staple mac and cheese I grew up eating (which I will share with you at some point).  Soul mac and cheese is legit – you thicken milk with a traditional roux (fancy word for cooking flour in fat like melted butter). Then you add cheese.  Then you make a topping out of things like bread crumbs and maybe some more cheese and or parsley.  Then you bake.

I found marrying the word “soul” with a recipe like mac and cheese entirely fitting for right now. Let me explain:

When I hear “soul”, I think of the business my sister started working for this year in Chicago: SoulCycle. She described SoulCycle to me as a company that offers fitness on a high-end level and is focused on putting the FUN back into exercise.  It’s an environment that focuses on positivity, inspiration, goals, and being your best self. Must be a terrible place to work, right?

Exercise is way too often viewed as something we HAVE to do. Something that’s hard. Torture. Boring. Laborious. Not enjoyable. Which is why many people DON’T consistently exercise.  Basic human nature dictates that we can only will ourselves to do something we aren’t getting a reward from for so long before we give it up.  (For a really good article on this and how to overcome it, check out this article: How to Start a Habit You Don’t Enjoy by neuroscientist Darya Rose, Ph.D.)

I finally got to experience SoulCycle myself recently when I was in Chicago.  It was so amazing that after the first day I did it again the next two days as well. It’s fitness just the way I like it: the mentality or message from the instructors is about being present, feeling the music, focusing only on you and your body, not watching other people, working where you are that day, letting your performance that day be enough, acknowledging and appreciating that you showed up, a good mix of pushing out of your comfort zone while accepting your current ability at the same time. Lastly of course, the other key to taking any fitness experience over-the-top for me… the music is awesome meaning motivating, loud, and good solid beats (read: lots of hip hop and rap if you pick the right instructors ;)).

In short, it’s about FULLY LIVING. Something I’ve been interested in for years. I first learned about it when I discovered mindfulness and the idea of mindful meditation. These involve being fully present in your life, even if just for short moments to begin. Not doing two things at once. ‘Cause the brain can’t process two things at once as quickly.  More stimuli means your reaction time is slower.  And attention wise, your brain learns to fade out details your attention is not on – i.e. those videos where you watch the b-ball game and miss the giant man in a monkey suit or whatever.  You’re not fully living when you run away with the thoughts in your head so far that you realize you’ve driven halfway to work without knowing how you got there. Being so consumed with what everyone else is doing, where they’re at in their life, and how you compare = not fully living. Starting to see the picture?

So yes, fully living means you feel everything in your life including the bad stuff.  When you hurt you fully hurt. And you go THROUGH the pain so you can pass it and move on. Instead of avoiding the pain or stuffing it down, which only makes things worse. Avoiding feeling the suffering creates more anxiety and suffering than actually feeling the suffering. But we do this as a learned defense mechanism. We think it serves to protect us.  We think it represents control over our lives. But it doesn’t. It’s a security blanket.

On the flip side, if you’re truly living, you truly feel joy.  You fully immerse yourself in a moment and feel free, uninhibited. Most times when I’m truly doing this I notice a slight smile or full-on laugh emerge.  Have you half-smiled in the middle of a workout lately? Because you love the song that just came on? Or you love how it feels to just move your body? It’s truly the best way to experience life.  The more you do it, the more you want to be open and vulnerable to whatever the world throws your way.

This connects directly to food and this recipe. Sometimes I wish I had simpler tastes. It would make cooking less complicated sometimes. But in my dream world, every single thing I eat should taste amazing. I should enjoy, appreciate, and savor each bite. It’s part of eating mindfully: only eating what you enjoy and stopping when it no longer tastes good or you feel signs of satiety and fullness. So if I want mac and cheese, I want a killer, delicious full-dairy, full-gluten version. Because if each bite is amazing, I’ll only have what satisfies me, and walk away completely content, with a craving satisfied. I won’t think about food until I’m hungry again hours later. This wasn’t the case when I was trying to eat exclusively paleo. I’d walk away from a zucchini noodle faux mac and cheese feeling less-than-satisfied, no matter how much I had, still craving the real deal and having a hard time forgetting about it. Since I don’t have any medical conditions that require me to eat gluten-free, dairy-free, I let go of it. (More on that transition letting go of trying to be exclusively paleo here.)

While I still enjoy and eat mostly what would be classified as “clean” or “whole foods” eating, because that’s what I like and what serves me, there’s times when only the real deal will do.  So if I’m being honest with myself and truly living, if I want mac and cheese, I want the full on experience. No make-shift version will do.

So if the pictures of this cheesy, decadent looking Soul Mac make you want it so badly but you feel guilty because you don’t eat dairy, or it looks heavy, or it looks like a heart-attack on a plate, or whatever you’ve been trained to think is good or bad about food, I urge you to let it go. (And read more about good and bad foods here.) Let go of your rules, relax, and be flexible (read: eat healthy the majority of the time and enjoy small portions of decadent-and-totally-worth-it foods like this some of the time). Did you know the latest research shows that guilt and anxiety around food can lead to weight gain? Not the food itself. (Reference: Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon, Ph.D.) Great news! Find pleasure and joy in food and you’ll better manage your weight. Enjoy a FULL life and trust your body will take care of itself.