Why You Feel Worse Every Winter (And How to Fix It)

We're not meant to eat the same year round. We're not meant to live the same year round. Everything in this world or on this planet and in this life runs on cycles. And when I understood this concept of seasonal cycles, seasonal eating, everything changed for me. Back in the days, I used to eat Bananas and drinking orange juice in the winter because I didn't even—I wasn't even aware of this of this concept, right? And sure, on paper, once again, I built some muscles. I've gotten some results. But looking at this, you look or you can clearly see that I'm looking very very puffy, bloated, holding water retention, clear mismatch when it comes from to a hormonal perspective. And I thought that, you know, this is just winter. This is how it is. You know, we're less outside, we're less exposed to the sun, which means that we're not gonna be as healthy. And, you know, this is the common trend that you see amongst everyone. It's like, escape the winter, go to the— fly to Australia or to Southeast Asia if you're living in a Nordic climate in the winter and escape the winter because that's how we're healthy, right? Which is completely wrong. And because now, if we take a look at how we're looking now in the winter, it looks like this, you know, laser-sharp physique, no bloating, hormones are absolutely dialed in, looking jacked, looking sharp, and laser, you know, I have energy that lasts me well throughout the day. I feel amazing, no energy crashes, no bloating, feeling like a million bucks. And seasonal eating and seasonal living And cycles is one of the key concepts that has changed everything for me. And if we just think about today's day and age, you know, most people feel more tired, more sluggish, more mentally foggy, and less motivated in the winter. But it's not because of the winter and because something is wrong with them. It's because their diet and living is sending the wrong seasonal signals to their biology. Humans have always evolved under seasonal food availability. We've never had the same things available to us in the winter. As in the summers, you know, if I go out in the woods now in here in Stockholm in Sweden, I'm not gonna find a fucking banana on a tree here, right? You know, I'm not gonna find a coconut either. So why would I ever eat that when I can't find that in my environment? And this is the concept that I'm gonna break down now. So in general, you know, summer equals high light, which primes us for more carbohydrates, more fruit, more energy, more activity. In winter, low light, cold, We are more adapted for fewer carbs, more fat and protein because that's what we have available, more fasting, more efficiency. Modern life completely ignores this. We eat summer foods in the winter, indoors, under artificial light, while sitting still. And this mismatch is one of the biggest drivers of low winter energy and brain fog, not looking the best or your best. Not looking as you can, not performing to your peak capacity. And that was the thing here as well. Like I had, I was eating the perfect macros, had the perfect training plan. I was doing everything right on paper, right? But I didn't see any, any clear evidence of the work that I was putting in. You know, I was doing everything right, literally everything right. I was going to the gym like more than I am right now. I was eating clean. I was very disciplined. I was definitely not lazy. But I felt flat, inflamed, constant, you know, crashes in in the energy, and I was wondering to myself, you know, why am I not getting the return on the effort that I'm putting in? So let's break this down. Seasonal eating. First of all, if you're new to the channel, welcome. My name is Lucas. I'm just a regular guy from Sweden, and over the last years, I've dedicated all my time and effort to solve complex health problems. And all we do on this channel is breaking those down into small. Easy, actionable implementations that you can take away so you live without any clutter, without any noise, and just pure clarity. So let's dive into this then. Your body once again evolved in rhythm with the environment. This is the first concept we have to understand. Light changes, temperature changes, food availability changes, and your biology changes with that. Your hormones shift, your thyroid output shifts, and your nervous system tone shifts. And most importantly, your mitochondria shift. The problem is this: modern food supply erased, completely erased the seasons. We're eating like it's July whilst we're living in Nordic cold January, right? And what actually happens then when we do that? Well, first of all, high carbohydrates, and a lot of carbohydrates are not just fuel, they're signals, right? When you eat a lot of carbs, especially sugar, fruit juice, smoothies, or tropical foods, your body receives this message that resources are abundant, Relax. There's no need to be efficient. And in winter, that message conflicts with reality: low sunlight, cold temperatures, short days, and higher baseline stress. That mismatch leads to poor fat burning, blood sugar swings, insulin spikes followed by crashes, and increased fatigue and cravings, reduced mental clarity, weaker stress tolerance. And on a cellular level, frequent carb intake shifts the body to Sugar burning, which produces more high-deterior metabolic water. And over time, this will slow your mitochondrial efficiency, meaning your cells literally produce energy less cleanly and less efficiently. That result feels like low energy, brain fog, and running on fumes. So this is why many people feel worse in the winter despite eating healthy. And this is the exact reason for, or this is exactly how I felt as well. I was doing everything right on paper, but I. Had brain fog, low energy, and I was just not feeling my best. So why are actually tropical foods a problem in the winter then? Well, first of all, foods like fruit juice, smoothies, honey dates, and tropical fruits evolved as high sun, high activity signals. They make sense when you're outdoors, light exposure is high, activity levels are high, and the body is primed for glucose use. In winter, those same food will spike insulin unnecessarily. It will suppress fat oxidation. It will increase energy volatility, and it will disrupt circadian rhythm signaling. And it will increase reliance on sugar for stress relief. Occasional fruit is not harmful. Daily tropical foods in the winter are. This is also why food and nutrition is such a health complex topic, right? I've said this multiple times, but we can't—we can take someone like Paul Savdin as an example. Eating a lot of meat and a lot of fruits every single day works fantastic for him. Why? Because he lives in close to the equator. He lives in a very tropical environment. He has all those things in abundance. I tried to adopt his diet, fruit, meat, and high sugar stuff in the winter. I felt absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible. And this is why we can't just take, like, just because something is working for someone, we can't just take that and completely adapt it ourselves. We have to look at all the variables around, right? Because how would it ever make sense for me to go to eat bananas and watermelons and papayas In the winter, when they're like that's been transported like from you know the other side of the of the of the earth to get here, right? That's not something that I would ever find in my nature. And the easiest rule to follow here is just like eat the things that you have around you. That's literally the most simple rule. And if there's something you should take away from this, it's that just think about what are the things that actually are around me right now, local seasonal stuff, and just stick to that. That's what you should be doing. Why does this even matter then? Well, here's the nuance. If you are sedentary, if you're an average person, if you don't push your brain, and if you, you know, don't train intensely, you're probably not going to notice that much different. You will survive. But if you're a high achiever, if you're a founder, if you're a leader, an ambitious man with high output demands, All these small inefficiencies compound, right? Slight metabolic instability becomes lower focus, lower drive, worse recovery, hormonal instability. And over months, because the winter is not just one month, it's a good amount of months, right? That becomes plateaued physique and declined energy. So half of the year you're stuck, right? At least here in Sweden, it's like 5-6 months worth of cold and winter. Imagine not making any progress there, and then compared to dialing that in and actually being aligned and then making progress and feeling your best for the rest of that time as well. It's absolutely a game changer. So for high performance, you know, we require precision, and seasonal alignment is part of that precision. So how do we actually do this then? What does seasonal eating actually look like? Well, let me break it down for you. In the winter, especially in cold climates, we want more animal fats, we want more animal protein, we want healthy fats, root vegetables, slower burning carbohydrates, and fewer tropical sugars. So I eat a lot of meat, a lot of high fat meat, root vegetables, potatoes, carrots, parsnip, a shit ton of fermented stuff, a good amount of seafood, you know, caviar, oysters, mussels. All these things: sardines, eggs, Greek yogurt, broths, stews. High protein, high fat in general, and less carbohydrates. Barely eat any fruits and you know high sugar stuff at all. And then in the summer, it shifts more fruit, more carb tolerance, higher overall energy throughput, right? Bananas, fruits, more carbs. No problem with carbs whatsoever here, right? Risotto, rice. You get the point. Good ice cream here and there as well. That's also acceptable. So this is how summer should be structured, and this is how winter should be structured. More fat, more protein, slower carbs. More carbs, leaner proteins, more fruits. It's very, very simple and straightforward. Now, someone could argue that, you know, oh, but Lucas, you're not going to find a papaya and a mango in Sweden in the summer as well, which is correct, right? But the most important thing is not local sourced food. Yes, but it's also regarding light exposure and temperature. It's all these things that affect you. So if you're exposed to the light and that supplements your high sugar, high, high fruit intake, That's the thing that matters more or most. Second is the local. Of course, it's better for me to eat something that grows in Sweden than a papaya and a mango, right? I'm not going to argue with that. And so don't get me wrong on that. But when you eat in rhythm with your environment, that reduces internal friction, that stabilizes energy, and that supports thyroid function, supports testosterone production, and improves mitochondrial efficiency. Most people are obsessed over macros. Very few think about metabolic context, right? Seasonal eating is about being extreme. It's about aligning your biology with reality. If you're fine with average output, average energy, and average body composition, you don't have to worry about this. But if you want to operate at a high level where your body and brain feels synchronized, this is one of the shifts that will change absolutely everything. Not because it's trendy, but because it's alignment, biological alignment. And alignment is what high performers build on. Right? Once again, if we compare this again, I used to have the perfect workout plan, perfect macros, tropical food in the winter, brain fog, energy crash, and dependent on caffeine to get through the day. I had no clue about seasonal eating. Now, you know, I work out less, but I follow seasonal eating philosophies. I prioritize my health over aesthetic. I have sky-high energy. I have zero brain fog. I have laser-sharp focus. You could argue that I'm more dialed with the inputs here than I am here, yet the outcome and the results are better here than here. Why? It's because effort doesn't equal result. It's more important that we have alignment and precision. I've mentioned this analogy multiple times as well, but if you and me are heading towards a destination, you just know the city we're going to. You have no clue if you're going right, left, up, down, whatever. You have a car. You're gonna drive there, but you have no clue where to go. I, on the other hand, I can walk, but I have Google Maps. I have the exact address put in, and I can just make sure that every single step I take is going to be towards that end destination. I'm mostly going to— most likely going to get there quicker than you, right? Because you're gonna just gonna end up driving around in circles, and maybe you'll get there, maybe you'll get to the right city, but then you're gonna have to find the right address as well, right? It's this concept. So precision and quality is more important than the effort. It's very, very important. It's more important to do the right thing than to do a lot, right? A lot of effort—it's the same thing most likely for a lot of business scenarios, right? You can put all the effort in, but if you're working on the wrong thing, that is not going to yield you any reward at all compared to doing the right thing without any noise and then just. Laser-sharp focus on you know the thing that is actually going to move the needle. You know, less effort will give will give you more results out of it. So think about that. It's more important to do the right thing than than the effort. This is also why all my clients get so insane results in the Superman Protocol. It's because we don't I don't just hand you a training plan and nutrition plan. We take all these things into consideration because. There's most likely someone out there that can give you a better training plan than me. I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm the best at at composing a perfect training plan, but I also understand that that's not the thing that is actually going to move the needle for you. There's things that are actually going to do more for you than having the perfect training plan and the perfect nutrition plan, right? Aligning your biology with all these things and fixing your lifestyle, fixing your sleep, your stress levels, fixing all these small little details around. That's where the real change happens, and this is why most of my clients get so crazy results in such a short amount of time as well. It's not because we're dialing in the nutrition and the training. Yes, we do that as well, but it's because we focus on all these small little variables as well that is gonna absolutely completely change your biology, your hormones, your energy levels, and all these things, right? Take Landon as an example. 120 days. He had been training for 10 years here. Showing up consistently, doing the work, eating clean, but eating wrong. Four months later, laser sharp. Boom! Same thing with you, Will, here as well. Showing up, doing the work, no results. Four months later, crazy. Same thing with Leo. Leo had also been training for a good amount of time. Ninety days. This is absolutely insane. Oliver, ninety days as well. Tonda. 120 days. Thomas, he's 40 years old. Thomas is 40 years old. There's no excuse, right? Showing up, had been training for 20 years at this point, doing the right thing, doing less but doing the right thing. 90 days later. And these are just a few. You can go, you can go to my Instagram stories, you can watch all the people, the reason why they get So insane results in such a short amount of time is things like this. It's aligning decisional eating. It's doing things properly. It's not just looking at training and nutrition as the variables that are going to get you to your goals, because that's very surface level thinking. Training and nutrition is 20% of the equation, right? The other 80% comes from all these things. It's aligning your biology and aligning your life with the season you're in. It's dialing in your hormones. It's dialing in your lifestyle. It's dialing in all the small little habits and variables that are gonna. Make the most amount of difference towards the end, right? All these things is what make the big what makes the big difference. Seasonal eating being one of those. I used to believe that I wouldn't be able to perform if I didn't have carbs in my system. Yet I'm the strongest I've ever been right now without with barely eating any carbohydrates in my diet right now. It's insane. Like you just have to trust me on this one. Being truly healthy from the inside is the most important thing. It doesn't matter if you have the perfect training plan, the perfect nutrition plan. True health from the inside is what's gonna allow you to get the results that you want. So start eating seasonal. Stop eating out of sync with your with nature and with the season, and you're gonna notice insane changes and differences in your energy levels in every single area of your life. Like literally every single area of your life. So I hope you got some good takeaways from this. Take a screenshot for this and use it as some sort of guidance. If you want a more in-depth guide on this, you can shoot me a message on Instagram and I'll send you over something that I usually just send to my clients. And without further ado, thanks for watching. Let me know if there's any questions on the topic and I'll see you in the next one. And if you're interested in one-to-one coaching with me like all these guys, you can apply in the first link in the description. You're going to be speaking to me or my right-hand man Anton. We're going to map out your situation, see where you're at, see how we can help you, or see how I can help you get jacked with less workouts, with less effort, but with more precision. So thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one. Go eat some seasonal fruit, some seasonal food. No bananas in the winter. Good.