Beat the Heat: Tips For Keeping Cool When The Weather Isn’t
I jokingly refer to this time of year as “Don’t touch me” season. It’s hot all the time. There is no reprieve. You just sit and glisten all the time. There are few things that actually beat the heat, but for the most part, we just have to suffer through it. The worst part of the whole thing is that it always makes me brutally examine myself.
For instance, all you delightfully fit women who run around in ninety degree heat in your shorts that have an inseam so microscopic it requires millimeters to measure? You all look so refreshed and not hot at all. While I’m sure you’re all lovely people on the inside, I really have to tamp down the rage-monster when I huff past you at a respectable pace, dripping with sweat while you jog peacefully – and dryly – by in the other direction.
I’m never going to be someone thin enough or confident enough to walk around in tiny shorts and a sports bra even if it is a hundred degrees out. That kind of exhibitionism is reserved for my air conditioner.
But anyway. Summer heat is a special kind of torture for chubby girls. We chafe. We sweat more. Well, I sweat more so I assume as much for all girls who are a little overweight like me.
Here are my Top 5 Beat the Heat tips to survive the heatwave.
Fanscape Architecture
Some people really are not lucky enough to have air conditioning. In fact, I only put mine in this week because I couldn’t take it anymore. Up until the moment that the AC unit went in, I had a complex and strategic plan of attack on the ridiculousness of a third floor apartment in 90 degree heat. They were angled in certain ways. They were laid out to create the most draft and fresh air infusion from windows and permanently shaded parts of the apartment.
Ice Stockpiles
Our freezer looks like a fortress of ice cube trays. We don’t have one of those fancy freezers that manufactures ice on command. Instead, we have six trays in various stages of liquidity. We upend those building blocks into a bucket that is constantly going in and out of the freezer all summer.
Watermelon
This isn’t really a strategy. I just really like it, and it’s super hydrating.
Gazpacho
I make gazpacho from scratch a couple times a month during the summer. I chop up high quality ingredients. I make it full of spices. I eat it every day for weeks. It’s super healthy. It’s super hydrating. It’s super cheap if you make it right. And it’s cold.
Cold foods are key.
Tight Sheets
Seriously. Get sheets that fit your bed. Nothing is worse than waking up at 5 AM, sweaty and gross, with sheets that are clinging to you. The tighter the sheets, the less fabric can touch your body.
Water
Drink a lot of water.
No, really.
I average 3 to 4 Nalgenes worth of water a day during the summer. Room temperature is best because you can absorb the water better when it is closer to your body temperature. I don’t know where I heard that but I did.
Other things that work:
Go places almost guaranteed to have air conditioning: the movies, bookstores, the library, restaurants you have noticed that don’t have their windows open to the street.
Make friends with someone who has access to a walk-in freezer who you can con into taking you inside for a few minutes. It’s worth the most degrading of bribery.
Wear fabrics that breathe. You couldn’t pay me to wear things that are leather in this weather. Okay, you couldn’t pay me to wear things that are leather, period, but that’s especially true in this weather.
Ice cream, frozen yogurt, slushees, anything you consume directly from the freezer, really, are great.
Stop cooking. I prepare food during this time of year. I don’t really do anything that requires external heat unless it’s a grill, and I can walk away from it.
That’s it. Those are all my suggestions. Obviously, I know it’s hot all around and that sometimes you just want to lie on the floor and cry about it because that feels like the only thing that will make it feel better. Here’s hoping the heat wave breaks soon my friends.
Now excuse me – I have to go strip down and lay in front of my air conditioner in next to nothing for a while.
