Ep. 83: What To and Not To Eat Before Your Next Tattoo Appointment

Here is your quick summary:

Eat fat and protein along with your carbs. 

If you don't eat, or eat carbs only (think: just toast, a bowl of cereal, a bowl of pasta, pop tarts, pancakes), your blood sugar will jump up and then crash and you will be cranky, shaky and sick feeling. And the tattoo will hurt more.

To prevent this, eat a lot of protein and fat along with your carbs (eggs and bacon with veggies and potatoes, bagel with lots of cream cheese and lox, tofu scramble and a half an avocado on a piece of toast. 

Fat and protein will help your blood sugar stay steady and support you being able to handle the intensity of getting tattooed easily. 

You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/

Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
Find the podcast on that same website as well as everywhere you listen to podcasts. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Food Question

Micah Riot 0:05

This is Micah Riot, and you are listening to Ink Medicine Podcast. Hello, this is Micah Riot here with another episode of Ink Medicine Podcast.

The Mid-Session Shaky Crash

Micah Riot 0:20

Today we're going to talk about what you should and should not eat before and after your tattoo appointment. So lately I've been having a couple different client experiences with people becoming shaky, not feeling very good right around the midpoint of the tattoo as we really get going and get into the flow and having to stop and give them give them snacks, which, you know, of course, if that's a thing that happens, I don't I don't mind at all. But it is preventable. Feeling bad is preventable during the middle part of your tattoo. Most likely it is because your blood sugar dropped. And the reason that will happen is if you either didn't eat at all before your appointment or you ate naked carbs.

What “Naked Carbs” Means

Micah Riot 1:01

What do I mean by naked carbs? Naked carbs are carbs that come on their own without anything to dress them up in. So if you're having a sandwich with a bunch of meat and cheese and sauce, you're not having naked carbs. You're having carbs, which is the bread, plus the protein and the fat of the meat and the cheese and the sauce. If you're having a piece of toast with, say, Nutella on it, that's a naked carb because the bread is a carb and so is the sweet chocolate. Fruit salad, plain carbs, naked carbs. Bowl of cereal, especially sugary cereal, but even if it's like a granola type of thing, also naked carbs. And what carbs do is that they get into your bloodstream really quickly, they energize you, you feel kind of, you know, good energetic for a little while, and then you crash, right? This is what happens with toddlers who eat too much candy or ice cream. They will, you know, they'll get super energetic, they'll run around, and then they'll they'll crash, and maybe even have a tantrum while they're doing it because that crash does not feel good at all. So that's kind of what happens to you if you eat naked carbs before your tattoo appointment. And we don't want that because it's going to make your tattoo more painful, it's gonna make you more cranky, it's gonna make you less able to make good, solid decisions about the work that's going on your body for the rest of your life. So before you come into your tattoo appointment, do not have a pastry, just a pastry, do not have just a bowl of cereal, do not have just bread, do not have a big bowl of pasta and nothing else.

Pre-Tattoo Meals That Last

Micah Riot 2:30

So the best thing the best things you can eat before you come to tattoo appointment are things that will make your blood sugar super steady, super even, and will last for a long time. For, you know, if you're eating a big meal full of protein and and more complex carbs like vegetables, like vegetables are carbs, but they're not sugary carbs, so they will take a lot longer in your body to digest. Vegetables also have fiber. Fruit has fiber too, but fruit is a much easier source of glucose, so it is a more fast-moving carb. So a great meal, for example, for your breakfast before you get tattooed in the early afternoon or the late morning would be like eggs and then also some turkey bacon, a regular bacon, or some lox. Um, if you're gonna have, I don't know, a bagel, you can have a bagel with cream cheese, a lot of cream cheese and a lot of locks. So your fat, cream cheese, and your protein locks is gonna slow down absorption of the bagel in your bloodstream. Also, bagels do have protein as well, so that is also really good. It's a fine choice, especially if you have healthy A1C, healthy blood sugar in general, your insulin's working well. You can totally handle a bagel with cream cheese and locks as your pre-tattoo breakfast. Another good option, say if you're a vegetarian, would be like a tofu scramble with some vegetables, and you can have a little piece of toast, that's fine too, with you know, maybe some cheese or something on it, like avocado. Um, so you know, a fair amount of fat and protein with your carbs. There's gonna be carbs in your meal, that is fine, but you're gonna have a bunch of fat, a bunch of protein with those carbs. If you're a big cereal person, you could have cereal, but put a whole bunch of nuts in it. Put some uh fibrous berries in it. Fiber also helps slow down the absorption of sugars, of um, sugars that come from carbs in your bloodstream. Uh, maybe you have some peanut butter with it, maybe you have uh something on the side, like a couple of eggs on the side, if you're gonna have that bowl of cereal. Not eating, that's a kind of a similar thing as eating carbs only, but probably even worse. If you're just getting up and having coffee, uh, you're gonna be shaky and you are gonna crash because getting tattooed uses up a lot of your resources in your body. Your body kind of has to has to work over time, it has to work pretty hard to deal with the pain, sensation, and you know, essentially you're getting injured and you just have to sit there and take it. So the body needs resources to deal with that experience. And if you're empty, your blood sugar is gonna crash, you're gonna feel terrible. You know, if you're not a big breakfast person, how about a protein smoothie or, you know, a thing of yogurt, something, something that's, you know, has fat protein in your system before you come in.

Smart Snacks During The Appointment

Micah Riot 5:22

And of course, you can bring your snacks. You know, if you get up, you're not hungry, but then you know, you get to the shop around 10 or 11 and your tattoo hours setting up, you can then, you know, have some eggs, bring your hard-boiled eggs with you, have a couple of eggs with some salt, have a little protein bar, you know, whatever you want to have with you. You can snack along. If you don't feel like you ate enough or you feel like you might crash, it will help to have a snack as that's happening, even if you're already in that cycle. You do need a snack at that point. So don't wait till you really crashed out. Have your snack. Ask your artist if they have snacks for their clients. I do. I keep a selection in my shop. I have, I always have popcorn, I have protein bars, sometimes I have meat sticks, sometimes I have cheese. I try to have uh little baby bells on hand at all times. Um, and of course I have candy. And in a pinch, if your blood sugar is crashing and there's nothing else around, have something sweet, like a diabetic. It will help you, you know, at least, at least if your blood sugar is on the higher end of that experience, it's gonna feel better than having it be very, very low. It is better to tell your artist that you're feeling bad, to stop, to even go outside the shop, grab a snack, go to the gas station, grab some nuts before you're fully shaky and feeling terrible. So let's review this again. Before getting tattooed, you need to eat. If it's morning time, you need to eat breakfast. If it's in the afternoon, you need to eat lunch, something within a couple hours of your tattoo appointment start, and something that will keep you full for a long time while keeping your blood sugar steady. So if you're having carbs, which most meals will have carbs in them because carbs are vegetables, breads, pastas, potatoes, um, and fruit, you're gonna have some sort of carb. You're gonna have a lot of fat and protein with it. Fats are things like avocado, nuts, um, oils, peanut butter, which is actually peanuts or legume, but you get it as a nut butter, it's a source of fat. Also cheese, um, a lot of different kinds of meats, like bacon is a good source of fat, of course. Or, say, breakfast, you're gonna have some eggs, but also with a side of more protein, because two eggs are only about 14 grams of protein, and you need about 30 per meal to have that nice steady blood sugar for a bunch of hours. If you're having coffee, you're gonna have also some protein, like a protein shake. Maybe put some coconut oil or something in your coffee to help, you know, help your body absorb it a little bit slower.

Quick Recap And A Better Experience

Micah Riot 7:47

Now, why do I as a tattoo artist care about this? Well, I want you to have a really good experience with me. And I want to have a really good experience with you. I want to give you your tattoo that you're gonna love in an experience that you can handle well easily. Thank you for listening. Please take notes. Uh, please practice this until it becomes sick in nature. This is good advice for your everyday life as well. Morning protein, very important to keep you feeling good throughout the day. I hope that your next tattoo appointment will be an absolute pleasure.