Do you think if "we" were fitter we'd suffer less in the heat?

[munemema]

There's been lots here about how difficult everyone is finding it.

I'm a typically fair Celt and used to be one of them.

But I got fit about a decade ago and haven't really suffered since. I wouldn't go for a run in the midday sun but can fairly happily carry on with my day/work whatever the weather, whereas before I would be miserable and nights were awful. Now I sleep fine when it's hot.

At work this week, in an old Victorian building with no aircon, people have been complaining that it's intolerable and it's certainly warm but I haven't found it particularly uncomfortable, whereas I've always thought of myself as someone who doesn't like the heat.

Or maybe I've learned to cope better as I've got older, although as I'm perimenopause, that seems unlikely.

I think it's dependent on a lot of things - weight, fitness, genetics, what you have to do in the heat, how well you sleep...all sorts, really.

I am fitter and stronger than I’ve been in years, but I hate this heat. It’s the fact that every breath I take in is hot - it’s like being in a microwave 🥵

The trouble is it always seems to hit so suddenly and we rarely acclimatise to it before it’s gone! And our homes aren’t made for it. There isn’t a single comfortable room in my house, they’re all boiling. It’s making everything hard to deal with, I feel really low tonight.

Nothing to do with fitness and everything to do with muscle mass. Generally if you have more muscle you will feel the heat more as your body is more efficient at heating you up, and overweight and obese people have more muscle (in addition to the fat).

That study just concludes that people with more muscle mass heat up more quickly after being cold. It doesn't say that people with high muscle mass are less able to regulate their body temperature in hot climates.

I do strawberry, but it’s just blowing hot air around! DSs bedroom isn’t too awful, but our bedroom and the living room are horrific.

BiL is a marathon runner and he bloody hates this weather too, even worse than I do. Some of us just aren’t built for the heat!

I have had stages of fit / unfit throughout my life.
I have never liked the heat... And I grew up in a country with 35 - 38 °C sweltering built up heat in summer as the norm! I

For me it's the type of heat. 40 degrees low humidity not pleasant but ok. 40 degrees high humidity, hell!
Use to live in Spain, often over 40 in July and August and in the 30s at night. We had fans but no aircon but did have a pool which was heaven on those days. Could cope because it was very low humidity, actually worse on the coast where humidity was much higher.

yeah i definitely suffer less with the heat when im slimmer, but then again, i cope better in winter when im a bit bigger.

I'm on holiday with a bunch of extremely fit cyclists chasing the Tour de France and we are all suffering the heat equally as bad.

Untrue in my case!

I’m a lot fitter than average and hate the heat. I did manage to do a 2 hour training session at 3.30pm yesterday when it was still about 32 degrees here so I can cope, but I definitely didn’t enjoy it and my performance was affected. I have quite a lot of muscle which definitely doesn’t help me with the heat I don’t think.

Yeah the type of heat makes a difference definitely. I used to live in Madrid, it regularly topped 40 degrees and I had no issues with it. However the humid heat here at the moment is unbearable. Incidentally I was much less fit then than I am now.

If we walked more and did not use cars for short journeys, air quality and CO2 would be less and the temperature/humidity would be better.

I grew up in rural Australia with no air con and a corrugated iron roof. So roasting in summer and freezing in winter (summer temps up to mid 40s in my childhood, winter temps often below 0). I remember doing tests in year 11 biology to see how much our body temp varied under very hot or very cold conditions.... mine was the changed the least for the heat (sauna) and second least for the cold (ice bath).