What to eat and skip before a session.

Hungry reads as tired, not disciplined.

A skipped meal does not make you look leaner in a photograph. It makes you look tired. Low energy shows up first in your eyes and your posture, long before it shows up anywhere else, and a portrait spends most of its attention on exactly those two things.

The instinct to eat lightly before being photographed is common, and it works against you almost every time. A steady, ordinary meal keeps your expression relaxed and your attention on the moment instead of on your stomach. That matters just as much when you are sitting for headshots as it does for something more personal like a boudoir session, because tired eyes read the same way no matter what the pictures are for.

What a real meal actually looks like.

There is no special pre-session menu, and you do not need to invent one. Eat what you would eat on any ordinary day when you wanted to feel good: some protein, some carbohydrate, and something you actually enjoy. That beats a plan built around what you assume a photograph demands.

If your session is early and you are not a breakfast person, something small still beats nothing at all. And if you have specific dietary needs or a medical condition that affects what or when you eat, follow your own doctor's guidance as always. Nothing about a portrait session should change a routine your health depends on.

The salty combination worth skipping.

A heavily salted meal right before your session is the one substitution actually worth making. Salt pulls water into your tissue, and the result is a face and hands that look slightly swollen in a way that was not there the day before. It fades on its own in time, but a session usually cannot wait around for that.

This is not a call to change how you eat in general, only what you reach for in the couple of hours before you arrive. A meal you already like, made a little lighter on salt than usual, does the job without asking you to eat something unfamiliar right before being photographed.

Coffee, and the jitters.

Caffeine is fine, at your normal amount. The mistake runs in both directions: more than usual leaves some people jittery and can flush the skin, and none at all when you usually have some leaves you flat and a little foggy, which reads as low energy in the same way skipping a meal does.

The rule is simply to keep it ordinary. Have what you would have on a normal morning, at the time you would normally have it, and let your body do what it already knows how to do.

Water, and the mint.

Drink water steadily through the day rather than a large amount right before you leave, which mostly just leaves you uncomfortable the moment we start. Steady hydration across the whole day does more for how your skin looks than anything consumed in the final hour.

Bring a mint or a piece of gum for the drive over, and finish it before you come inside. Guided posing puts your face close to the camera more often than people expect, and fresh breath is one small thing worth not thinking about once you arrive.

A small water bottle in your bag is worth the space it takes up, especially if your session runs through several looks and wardrobe changes. Sipping between looks keeps you comfortable, and it is one less thing to think about once the camera is up.

Where food sits in the rest of the week.

Eating well the morning of matters, but it works best as the last step in a longer plan rather than a fix on its own. The night before deserves its own attention too, covered fully in the checklist for the night before, and the whole week-long version of this planning lives in how to prepare for a photoshoot.

If you also train regularly, when you fit a workout in around a session changes some of this timing, and that is its own subject, covered in workout timing before a shoot. Food and training interact more than most people expect, so it is worth reading if a session is landing on a normal training day for you. And if a tan is also part of your plan, the timing question there follows a similar logic to food: settle it early, and it is covered in spray tan timing.