Winter flow 8: The Truth Beyond All Diets

In our last blog, you discovered how cold and darkness help you to burn fat

Today, I'm going to tell you about the wisdom of food and a woman named Amy who couldn't sleep.

The Tomato That Changed Everything

Late August 2019. I'm at a farm in Quebec, enjoying my first harvest season.

I'm standing in the garden with the farmer, ''Hunt''… One of my mentors and the man who's been teaching me everything about working with nature instead of against it.

He hands me a tomato right from the vine. The first thing I notice is that it is still radiating with warmth from the sun's radiant light

"Pick it," he says.

Full of excitement, I twist it free and the smell hits me immediately: sweet, earthy, alive.

I bite into it and I pause to savor the taste. In this moment, I feel a wave of gratitude washing over me.

I feel gratitude for the months of work and sweat that went into this single tomato.

For the farmer's hands in the soil, the countless hours of weeding the crops, watering and nourishing the roots.

For the sunlight that nourished it. For the earth that sustained it.

For the rain that fell and showered it with grace. For this moment, right now, standing here alive.

My eyes fill with tears and the farmer notices.

He doesn't say anything. Just nods and share a warm smile acknowledging the profoundness of this moment

A year ago in Beirut, I felt nothing. I was completely numb and I felt dead on the inside. Sick from going through life pretending everything was okay.

Going to an office, sitting under artificial lights and staring at screens from 9 to 5

Living in manmade boxes that disconnected me from nature.

Watching everyone around me pretend that this was fine. That this is how we're meant to live.

I knew…. Deep in my heart, I knew something was missing.

Something so fundamental to existence that humanity can't thrive without it.

I just didn't know what it was and now I'm standing in a garden, crying over a tomato.

Not because I'm sad. Because I can feel again.

Because life has brought me back in touch with what I knew was missing all along.

Syncing back to the roots and reconnecting to mother Nature. Coming back home.

I turn towards Hunt and share with puzzled passion : '' This doesn't taste like any tomato I've ever eaten''

It's not just sweet. It's... complex. Rich. Like it contains the entire summer in one bite.

Nothing like the pale, hard, tasteless tomatoes I used to buy at the grocery store in Beirut.

"Why does it taste so different?" I ask.

Hunt smiles.

"Because it grew here. In this soil. Under this sun. Picked today with love and care''

He pauses, looking out over the garden.

"That tomato is full of light. You're not just eating nutrients. You're eating sunlight and nature's love packaged in a bite."

At the time, I thought it was poetic. Beautiful, and.. poetic.

I had no idea he was telling me a literal scientific truth.

Amy's Email

Fast forward to winter 2023.

I receive an email from a woman named Amy, a 45 years old woman and mother of four.

She writes:

"Roudy, I'm doing everything right. I eat organic. No processed sugar. I meal prep every Sunday. I work out three times a week. But I'm completely exhausted by 2 PM every day. I can't sleep through the night. I wake up at 3 AM drenched in sweat. I'm irritable with my kids. I don't understand what's wrong with me."

We exchanged several emails back and forth and I was trying to understand more about her light environment.

I know in my gut that, just like the thousands of other health seekers I've connected with, Amy doesn't have an exhaustion problem. She has a misalignment with nature's forces problem.

After asking about her light exposure, I discover what I expected:

Just like 99% of the population today, Amy is living in a light environment that's making her sick.

Then I ask about what she eats. Not because I want to prescribe her a diet. But because I want to understand what signals the light in her food is sending to her body.

She lists what she eats:

All "healthy" foods. All recommended by nutrition experts. All 100 % FDA certified organic.

While this sounds very healthy to the typical health seekers, in reality, it's TRAGICALLY unhealthy during the winter time

What I Saw That Amy Didn't See

When I read Amy's email, I immediately saw the problem.

Besides never getting sunlight during the day, bombarding herself with artificial light at night and avoiding cold AKA living in regulated temperatures around the clock:

Everything she was eating came from food grown under summertime UV light

Blueberries in January? Shipped from Chile, grown under summer sun.

Mango? Tropical fruit growing in Mexico requires intense year-round heat and UV light.

You get the idea…

Her body was receiving a constant signal:

"It's summer. Stay in summer mode."

Fast metabolism. High energy expenditure. High cortisol. High inflammation.

But it wasn't summer. It was January in Michigan.Nature outside was emitting winter information: short days, cold temperatures, minimal sunlight.

Her body was craving to shift into winter mode. And yet her artificial environment was lying to her body.

Her food and artificial light environment were screaming "SUMMER."

Her body was confused, stuck between two seasons and unable to adapt to either.

What I Learned on the Farm

Back to that first harvest summer. Over the next few months, I started noticing that I was naturally eating whatever the garden produced.

Summer: Tomatoes, berries, leafy greens, cucumbers, peppers…

All bursting with flavor. All growing under long, intense days of high UV sunlight.

And I felt... alive, energized and active all day. Working outdoors for 12+ hours without getting tired.

My body was burning through food quickly, using it as immediate fuel.This is what summer is supposed to feel like.

When late autumn arrived , the tomatoes stopped producing and the leafy greens were gone. What appeared instead? Squash. Pumpkins. Root vegetables. Nuts falling from trees.

Even my cravings shifted. I didn't want the light salads anymore. I wanted roasted squash, warm soups and fatty nuts

By winter, the garden was nearly bare.

We ate from storage: root vegetables, fermented foods, eggs from the chickens, hunted meat, dried fish…

No fresh fruits, leafy greens or berries. And something remarkable happened:

For the first time ever through my adult life, I felt wonderful during the winter

I did not crave summer foods.

My energy was different. Not the high-intensity buzz of summer, but a deep, sustained vitality. I was sleeping longer and deeper. Waking up refreshed without an alarm.

My body has adapted to winter.

The Science Behind What I Was Experiencing

Food is captured sunlight.

Through photosynthesis, plants convert sunlight, water, and CO₂ into chemical energy.

As the University of Hawaii puts it: "All of the energy we get from food can be traced back to the sun."

Plants are nature's solar panels.

They absorb specific light frequencies, mostly blue and red wavelengths, through pigments like chlorophyll, and transform that electromagnetic energy into the fuel for the entire food chain.

Every carrot, apple, or leaf of spinach is literally a bundle of captured light frequencies.

When you eat a strawberry, you're eating concentrated summer sunlight.

We're not just eating nutrients. We're eating light information.

Plants Produce More Than Energy

And here's what's absolutely fascinating:

Plants also produce protective compounds in direct response to sunlight.

Think of it like this: when you go out in the strong summer sun, your skin produces melanin to protect itself.

Plants do something similar.

When plants are bathed in intense UV light, they produce their own "sunscreen":

These compounds help them handle all that solar energy without getting damaged.And here's the key: those protective compounds become nutrition for you.

In summer, when you're exposed to intense UV light, these compounds help your body handle that solar stress. They support your skin's melanin production and protect your cells from oxidative damage.

They're highly purposeful during summer months because they match the environmental stress you're facing.

But Here's What Happens When the Signals Don't Match

When you eat summer compounds in winter, your body receives conflicting information.

The food says: "High UV. Summer stress. Stay alert. High metabolism."

But in reality, during the winter time. there's no high UV outside.

As a result, your body experiences a mismatch between the light entering your eyes (winter) and the light codes from the food hitting your gut (summer). (More on this in the next blog)

Amy's Transformation

I sent Amy an email explaining all of this.

I told her: "Your body thinks it's summer. But you're living in winter. These confusing signals may be the very root cause of …"

But I didn't tell her to overhaul everything at once. I told her to start with two keystone habits. The same two that transformed me on the farm:

"Step outside within 30 minutes of waking. No sunglasses. Face the sun. 5-10 minutes.

Then after sunset, wear Evening Lenses. One hour before bed, switch to Nighttime Lenses."

She wrote back two weeks later: "Roudy, I'm sleeping better. Not perfect, but better. I'm waking up less at 3 AM. And I feel... a little more clear-headed during the day.

I loved hearing about the progress. I knew we are not at the transformation level, and yet, Amy is experiencing encouraging progress.

I wrote back: Now let's add one more thing. Let's align your food with winter.

I suggested she try something simple: Eat only foods that are naturally available in winter locally. No exported foods from tropical countries

I asked Amy find those local foods from her local farmers like root vegetables ,squash, pastured eggs, grass fed meat , wild fish, nuts and fermented foods

She wrote back six weeks later (eight weeks total from when she started):

"Roudy, I'm sleeping through the night for the first time in two years. I wake up at 6 AM naturally. No alarm. No grogginess. Just... awake. My energy is steady all day. I feel... like myself again. The hot flashes are almost gone. And here's the crazy part. I lost 8 pounds without trying. I'm eating more fat than I ever have, and my body is leaner. My kids noticed. My husband noticed. They said I seem... lighter. Not just my weight but also my energy. Like I'm actually present with them now instead of dragging through the day."

Amy didn't need more willpower. She didn't need a new diet.She didn't need supplements.

She needed to stop confusing her body with contradictory seasonal signals.

A New Way of Seeing

Standing in that garden, biting into that tomato, I started to understand something profound.

Food is not just fuel. It's light information.

Every bite carries the electromagnetic signature of where and when it grew.

Your body has evolved over millions of years to read these signals.

The complexity of dieting dissolves when you see this truth.

You don't need to count calories, measure macros or follow the latest trend.

You need to eat what grows where you live, when it grows.

Your great-grandmother knew this without reading a nutrition label.

Bears know this without studying biochemistry.

And you can know it again by realigning with nature's wisdom

What's Next

In Blog 9, we'll make this practical.

Exactly what to eat in winter. How to structure your meals.

Why your eyes and your gut need to tell the same story.

How your body naturally shifts into ketosis when you align with the season.

But for now, let this truth settle:

You are a light being. Eating light. Synchronized with the rhythm of light.

When you reconnect with this, you don't just heal your metabolism.

You become a guide for your family.

You create a home where food isn't stress or confusion but nourishment, connection, and trust in the rhythms that have sustained life since the beginning.

That's what coming home feels like.

The Science Behind This Blog

Continue Your Winter Flow Journey