WeLoveBlog #052: Summer Didn't Make You Thinner. So Do You Still Need to "Fatten Up" for Autumn?

Have you ever heard the phrase "tie qiu biao" (貼秋膘), literally, "putting on autumn fat"?

Maybe it came from an elder's offhand remark: "It's the start of autumn, time to nourish up." Maybe it was a seasonal caption on social media. It sounds a little old-fashioned, and it clearly has something to do with eating meat. But ask one more question, why does autumn call for "fat," and what kind of "fat" are we talking about, and most people don't have an answer.

The truth is, this phrase has been around for more than two thousand years. In this post, we'll trace where it came from, then ask the question that actually matters: what should we be replenishing in 2026?

1. First Things First: Where Did "Autumn Fattening" Come From?

Spread two thousand years of history on the table, and it comes down to three stages.

• It began as a ceremony. The Book of Rites records that on the first day of autumn, the emperor would lead his officials to the western outskirts to welcome the season. For people who lived and died by the harvest, autumn was the most solemn turning point of the year.
• In the Qing dynasty, it became a scale. The Qing had a rather charming custom called "weighing the people": you weighed yourself at the start of summer, then again at the start of autumn. If the number dropped, you had suffered a "bitter summer," and you needed to eat back what you had lost. It made perfect sense at the time. In a world without air conditioning or electric fans, the heat killed your appetite while draining your energy, and most people genuinely ended the summer a few pounds lighter. Eating hearty, braised meat when autumn arrived was survival wisdom at its most practical. Back then, the "fat" was truly needed.
• Later, it became a table full of food, with every region cooking its own version. Late-Qing Beijing turned autumn fattening into an art form, with soy-braised pork hocks, roast duck, and griddle-grilled meats taking turns on the table. In the northeast, families ate dumplings and called it "grabbing autumn fat." Huzhou served cold-sliced lamb; Yangzhou brought out lion's head meatballs. And in Taiwan, the main event comes later in the season: on White Dew day you eat longan, as the old saying goes, "one longan is worth one whole chicken," and the serious tonics wait for the start of winter, known as "bu dong," the winter nourishing feast, when sesame oil chicken and ginger duck stew land on the table and the whole family gathers around. One instruction, "nourish up," and every region found its own answer.

2. And Now? It's Become "An Excuse to Eat Well"

Nobody's survival depends on autumn fattening anymore. The phrase has softened into a seasonal saying, a collective memory carried by food. Every year around the start of autumn, dumpling houses, deli counters, and barbecue joints see their little rush, and everyone quietly agrees: the season has turned, time to eat something good.

Put simply, the modern version of autumn fattening is this: a perfectly legitimate excuse for a great meal.

Its liveliest form might be the Mid-Autumn barbecue beloved by so many Chinese families: the charcoal catches, the meat sizzles and flips, kids orbit the grill, adults chat with tongs in hand, and just like that, autumn is officially open. The ritual is still here. The togetherness is still here. The seriousness about eating well is still here.

Only one thing has changed: we are no longer the bodies that starved thin over summer.

3. Here's the Problem: Step on a Scale This Autumn, and You Probably Won't Weigh Less

Look back at that Qing dynasty scale and something interesting happens: run the same experiment today, one weigh-in at the start of summer and one at the start of autumn, and for most of us the autumn number would only be bigger.

Think about how our summers actually go. Air conditioning keeps the appetite fully intact, iced milk tea and cold drinks flow from June through August, the freezer keeps ice cream within arm's reach, and the weekends line up one BBQ after another. The modern summer has never lacked calories.

But that doesn't mean summer costs us nothing. What actually gets depleted are two other things:

• Your digestion, what TCM calls the spleen and stomach. A whole summer of icy drinks, raw and cold foods, and constant snacking wears out the digestive system first. If your appetite has faded lately, if you feel bloated after meals, notice stronger breath, or your digestion has turned irregular, that's your gut protesting: it has been worked over all summer and has little left to give.
• Your qi and yin. Late nights, ping-ponging between icy air conditioning and blazing sun, sweating hard and replacing it with nothing but ice water. TCM calls this "summer heat depleting qi and injuring yin". In everyday terms, it's that tiredness that no amount of sleep seems to fix.

So "nourishing" hasn't gone out of date at all. Only the direction has reversed: the old autumn fattening put weight on the body; the modern version restores what the summer took out. Replenish what you actually lack. That is the part of this two-thousand-year-old phrase still worth keeping.

4. The Modern Way to "Fatten Up": Get the Order Right Before the Menu

Once the direction is clear, the method is simple. Three steps, in order.

• Step one: wake up your digestion before you nourish anything. A gut that spent the summer being iced does not want a parade of rich food. For the first two weeks, subtract instead of adding: pause the cold drinks and switch to room temperature, move dinner a little earlier and keep it lighter, stop at about eighty percent full. When your appetite comes back on its own, your digestion is back online, and only then will your body actually absorb what you feed it.
• Step two: nourish with quality protein. Modern nutrition and old wisdom rarely agree this neatly: what autumn calls for is not fat and calories but quality protein for repair. In practice: fish and shrimp first, salmon, cod, and sea bass are all great, and steaming is the easiest route; go skinless with poultry, and skim the fat off a well-simmered chicken soup so you get both the broth and the meat; then rotate in everyday options like eggs and tofu. Braised pork belly and barbecue aren't forbidden, they're just for cravings, not for nourishment. Let the sides follow the season, with Chinese yam, lotus root, pumpkin, and daikon all in their prime, and swap frying and grilling back to steaming, simmering, and braising.
• Step three: the smartest format is a pot of soup. Gentle ingredients and meat, simmered low and slow, with the soup as the main event and the meat on the side. Soup-based nourishment is warm, easy to absorb, and easy on a digestive system that's just getting back on its feet, which is exactly what TCM's "gentle nourishment" looks like in its most effortless form. For busy families it has one more hidden advantage: one pot feeds everyone, from grandparents to kids.

Or, to put it another way: barbecue is Mid-Autumn's social hour. The soup is autumn's actual nourishment.

💡 Editor's note: People often ask, "Every time I take tonics I get heaty. Does nourishing just not suit me?" Most of the time it's not you, it's the order. When your digestion is still clogged, anything rich only adds to the burden, which is what the old phrase "too depleted to absorb the tonic" describes. Eat light for two weeks first, then start gently, and much of that "heatiness" disappears on its own. Of course, if you're getting over a cold or currently on medication, check with your doctor before starting any tonics.

5. Autumn's First Pot: Chinese Yam and Lotus Seed Chicken Soup (the 15-Minute Version)

The first step of modern autumn fattening might as well start with this pot. Chinese yam is mild and nourishing without being heavy, lotus seeds support digestion and calm the mind, and both are classics of gentle nourishment that kids and elders can share.

Ingredients (serves 3 to 4):

• 1 pack Golden Chicken Broth with Organic Chicken Thighs
• 1 section Chinese yam (about 300 g)
• 1 small handful dried lotus seeds (about 20)
• 3 to 5 red dates

Directions:

1. Soak the dried lotus seeds in warm water for 30 minutes (or 10 minutes in hot water if you're short on time). If you mind the bitterness, remove the green cores.
2. Peel the Chinese yam and cut it into chunks. It can make your hands itch, so gloves help.
3. Heat the whole pack of Golden Chicken Broth, then pour it into a pot, chicken and all, and bring it to a gentle simmer over medium heat.
4. Add the yam and soaked lotus seeds, turn the heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes, until a chopstick slides easily through the yam.
5. Add the red dates, let everything bubble for 2 more minutes, and turn off the heat. The broth is already seasoned, so there's nothing to add.

If someone at home likes a little morning boost, there's an even simpler route: warm a pack of Original Organic Chicken Essence in a water bath and sip it on an empty stomach. It's daily nourishment with zero effort.

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Writing all this out, it strikes us that "autumn fattening" is actually a rather moving phrase.

A phrase doesn't survive from the Zhou dynasty to today because of a few pounds of meat. It survives because of the care folded inside it: the seasons are changing, remember to look after yourself, and after the people around you. Our ancestors used a hanging scale to check whether their family had grown thin. We use a barbecue and a pot of soup to keep watch over the very same thing.

It's just that two thousand years on, the number on the scale is no longer our homework. The real homework is slowly paying back what summer borrowed from the body: a dinner served a little earlier, a morning without an iced drink, a pot of warm soup the whole family can share. Small things. But the body remembers.

Autumn is here. No rush, nourish slowly. See you in October :)

For more seasonal wellness reads, come browse the BROTH blog.

The content above is for general health and wellness information only, not medical advice.

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References

1. Baidu Baike: "Tie Qiu Biao" entry (origins, the weighing custom, and regional foods)
2. Ministry of Agriculture, Taiwan: Start of Winter (Li Dong) (Taiwan's winter nourishing customs)
3. Supertaste (TVBS): Start of Autumn: Customs and Traditions (autumn customs and seasonal eating)
4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source: Protein (choosing quality protein)
5. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NIH): Traditional Chinese Medicine: What You Need To Know (an overview of TCM concepts)
6. Chinese Text Project: Liji, Yue Ling (Book of Rites, Proceedings of Government in the Different Months) (the original text and English translation of the autumn welcoming rite)
7. Taipei Times: Secret Sauce: The Surprising Origins of Taiwan's Mid-Autumn Barbecue (how Taiwan's Mid-Autumn BBQ tradition began)
8. Cleveland Clinic: Bone Broth: Benefits, How To Make and Nutrition (soup-based nourishment and broth nutrition)
9. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source: Sugary Drinks (sugary and iced drinks and health)