My Journey With Health And Fitness – Dealing With Heat And Humidity

We now have things set up at our condo in Mexico so that we can watch Canadian TV stations. That means each morning when we get up we watch our favourite news broadcast. That has let us track the weather the metro Vancouver area has been experiencing since we have been away. I have to say it is no where near as much fun to be in Mexico when you can’t call home and brag about the beautiful weather when home is having a wonderful fall heatwave. The only good thing about it is the weather will still be nice when we arrive home on Saturday.

As usual while we have been in Playa del Carmen the weather has been hot, usually high 30’s everyday with the low only going to mid 20’s at night. As I have said in the past, I sweat so as you can imagine being in this kind of heat and humidity I am soaked all the time. Throw in several hot flashes during the day and you can only imagining how bad things can be for me. Trust me when I say I tend to take things like a handheld fan and some sort of cloth wherever I go. This trip a new thing happened, I actually developed heat blisters on my lips!

So what do I do to mitigate all of this? Firstly, I do not step foot outside without being seriously coated in sunscreen. If you remember from a previous blog, most people do not wear anywhere near enough sunscreen. Not me, I coat every potentially exposed inch of skin with a thick coating. Secondly, if I am out in the sun for any length of time I tend to wear a large brimmed hat to keep the sun off my face. Thirdly, since we try to only turn on the air conditioning at night (due to the high cost of electricity) I have taken to using a small electric fan to help keep me cool. As for the heat blisters, that probably is my own fault as normally I travel with Chapstick which I would have used as soon as my lips started drying out. Unfortunately I didn’t bring any and had a terrible time finding any in the grocery stores here. Lesson learned, I won’t leave home without Chapstick again.

You have to wonder if I don’t do well with heat why I would want to come to Mexico. The answer is pretty simple, I love it here as much as I love my city by the sea at home. Home we have the ocean and the mountains while here we have palm trees and a pool steps away. To me, some discomfort is all worth it. Oh and the trade off is also not having to deal with months of rain and sometimes even snow.

Yep, I’ll just keep finding ways to deal with the heat and humidity.