There's a moment every summer when the kitchen stops being a room and becomes a punishment. It's 35 °C outside, the flat is holding yesterday's heat, and all your body wants is something cold — preferably from the freezer, preferably now. That's when most people make the same move: skip lunch, then at seven in the evening eat everything the house has.
The problem isn't discipline. The problem is that the plan that worked in April doesn't account for June. Appetite genuinely drops in the heat — your body is busy cooling itself and isn't asking for stew. If you don't plan for that, the day rearranges itself into skipping and late overeating.
First rule of hot days: shift, don't cut. Move the main meal to late morning or late afternoon, when the flat is bearable. In between, let cold ten-minute meals do the work: tarator, cold pasta with tuna and lemon, chickpea salad with tomato and feta, overnight oats from the fridge.
Second rule: salt and water travel together. When you sweat, you don't just lose liquid. If you're drinking litres of water and still feel flat, you're probably short on electrolytes — a glass of mineral water, some cheese or olives with a meal fix more than it sounds.
Third rule: protein doesn't go on holiday. In the heat it's easiest to live on watermelon and bread, then wonder why you're hungry every two hours. Cold protein sources are your allies: Greek yogurt, eggs boiled in the cool morning, tuna, chicken roasted the night before, cheese, chickpeas.
And fourth, maybe most important: dinner is allowed to be small. A summer dinner of salad, cheese and a slice of bread isn't a "skipped meal" — it's a meal sized for a day in which you already ate two proper ones. A plan that follows the season doesn't ask you to fight your own thermometer.
And if the day gets away from you — it will, July is long — you don't punish yourself tomorrow. You return at the first cold meal, and that's it. Rhythm beats heat, every time.