Ian Callaghan

I broke a 72 hour water fast with this.

Yes, there is bacon.
Yes, there are sausages.
Yes, that is black pudding.
Yes, there is a fried egg.
And yes, before the bread police start polishing their little comment badges, that is a slice of proper sourdough fried in bacon fat.

Not supermarket fake sourdough with “sourdough starter 3%” and a label longer than a mortgage agreement.

Proper sourdough.

Heritage flour.
Salt.
Water.

End of.

This was my OMAD, but it was also my first proper food after a 72 hour water fast. I did the fast for a few reasons, but one of the big ones was autophagy.

Autophagy is not influencer detox bollocks. It is cellular housekeeping. Your body breaking down old, damaged, knackered cell parts and recycling what it can still use.

On Monday I had two teeth out, so my body had an actual repair job to do. Gum tissue, inflammation, clot formation, immune clean-up, collagen work, tissue repair. Not “wellness”. An actual wound.

Now, I am not saying autophagy put on a hi-vis vest and marched directly into my mouth shouting, “Right lads, socket repair, let’s go.” Biology is not a Marvel film.

But a longer fast changes the internal environment. Lower digestive load. Lower insulin. Lower constant food processing. More cellular clean-up. Then when you break the fast, you need to stop being a fasting hero and actually feed the rebuild.

That is where people get it wrong.

They either eat constantly and never give the system a break, or they fast like monks and refeed on lettuce, fear, and smugness.

This plate is protein, fat, minerals, real food, satiety, and a clear message to the body after three days without food:

We are fed.
We are safe.
Now get on with the rebuild.

Eggs for complete protein, choline and fat-soluble nutrients. Bacon, sausages and black pudding for amino acids, B vitamins, minerals and actual satiety. Mushrooms for fibre and cellular support compounds. Tomatoes cooked in fat so the lycopene is more available. Sourdough because real fermented bread is not the same thing as ultra-processed beige foam from aisle seven.

Context matters.
Quality matters.
Ingredients matter.
And occasionally, bacon fat is not the villain.

It is just the pan remembering what breakfast used to be.

Would you break a 72 hour fast with this, or would you go gentle first?

#72HourFast #OMAD #Autophagy #RealFood #MidlifeReset

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5

2 days ago | [YT] | 94

Ian Callaghan

The self-help industry has been starting in the wrong place for fifty years.
New identity first. Decide who you want to be, bolt it on, white-knuckle it until it sticks. You know how that ends. You've watched it end that way more than once.
The fix doesn't start with the operator. It starts with what the operator is sitting on top of.
That's what Under Load is about. The load underneath the pattern. The mechanics of why the same loop keeps running no matter how many times you decide it won't.
If that lands, the book is here 👇
www.iancallaghan.co.uk/understanding-self-sabotage…

4 days ago | [YT] | 18

Ian Callaghan

What if the fry-up you have been eating every hungover Sunday for thirty years has been extending the damage rather than fixing it?

Here is the mechanism.

When you drink, your liver converts alcohol into acetaldehyde, a Group 1 carcinogen. Your body clears it using an enzyme called ALDH2. That enzyme has been working since midnight. It is not done by breakfast.

When you heat sunflower oil in a frying pan, it oxidises and produces a toxic aldehyde called 4-HNE. Neurotoxic. Damages cell membranes. Depletes glutathione, the same antioxidant your body is already burning through to clear last night's acetaldehyde.

Both aldehydes compete for the same enzyme system.

You have just saturated it further.

The Flora on the toast is seed oil in a tub. The semi-skimmed stripped of fat-soluble vitamins. The white toast a glycaemic spike on already wrecked blood sugar. The brown sauce sugar and modified starch on top of that.

The only thing on that table working in your favour is the eggs. And most people fry them in the sunflower oil.

Eggs cooked in butter deliver cysteine, a glutathione precursor. Butter does not oxidise at frying temperature. It does not produce 4-HNE. Same comforting breakfast. Completely different biochemical outcome.

This is the Eat pillar of the Emotional Observation Method. Physiology before psychology. You cannot think your way out of a craving when the system processing last night's damage is still at capacity.

Reduce the load. Start there.

Full breakdown of the aldehyde mechanism here: www.iancallaghan.co.uk/heated-seed-oil-alcohol-ald…

5 days ago | [YT] | 43

Ian Callaghan

Have you ever felt worse on a morning you didn't drink than on one you did?

That isn't a bad hangover. That can be withdrawal, and they are not the same thing.
A hangover is your body clearing a poison. Withdrawal is your body panicking because the poison is gone. One you sleep off. The other, at its worst, is seizures and a hospital.

I'm Ian Callaghan. I drank for 45 years, quit without AA or a clinic, and I teach a physiology-first method called EOM. My new breakdown gives you the three questions that tell a hangover from withdrawal, the GABA and glutamate mechanism underneath it, and how to handle it without white-knuckling.

If that sounds like you, it's the most useful seven minutes you'll watch this week. Live on the channel at 6pm today.

Which one have you been living with without realising it? Tell me below. 👇

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3

1 week ago | [YT] | 41

Ian Callaghan

Everything You’ve Been Told About "Healthy" Cooking Is Killing Your Metabolism
The "health food" industry is a $900 billion gaslighting campaign.

As a chef, I’ve watched from the inside as we’ve been systematically sold a bill of goods. We’ve been told that saturated fat is the enemy, that seed oils are "heart-healthy" alternatives, and that a bowl of industrially processed "heart-healthy" cereal is a superior start to the day than a pasture-raised egg.

It is absolute, laboratory-engineered sludge.

For years, I operated like a machine in the IT industry. I understand systems. When you feed a system the wrong fuel, it doesn’t just run slowly—it begins to cannibalise its own hardware. Your body is no different. We are currently living through an evolutionary mismatch; our biological software is running on a 10,000-year-old kernel, but we are pumping it full of modern, synthetic, proinflammatory oils that didn't exist when our ancestors were shaping the human genome.

The Silent Killer in Your Kitchen
If you look at the back of a bottle of "vegetable oil," "canola," or "sunflower oil," you aren't looking at food. You are looking at a highly processed industrial product that requires heavy chemicals, extreme heat, and deodorising agents just to make it palatable.

These oils are high in Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. In excess—which is the standard modern diet—these fats drive systemic inflammation. When your baseline is chronic inflammation, your brain fog isn't a personality trait, and your midlife lethargy isn't just part of getting older.

It is a metabolic fire. And you are pouring petrol on it every time you sauté a piece of fish in that cheap, yellow oil.

The Tactical Pivot: The "Kitchen Sink" Slaw
This is how you turn a "salad" into a tactical meal. Forget the limp, store-bought leaves drowned in inflammatory seed oil dressings. This is what fuel looks like.

The Build:

The Foundation: Red and white cabbage, shredded for gut-supporting fibre, mixed with carrots, French breakfast radish, and red onion.

The Ferment: Raw kraut and cold-brined jalapeño relish. This is your probiotic foundation, essential for a resilient gut-brain axis.

The Protein Powerhouse: Home-cured streaky bacon, vintage cheddar, and local eggs. This is high-quality, bioavailable protein and fat that keeps you operating for hours, not minutes.

The Dressing: I use avocado oil-based bacon-aise mayo, spiked with some of the brine from the ferments. It is rich, stable, and it hits the palate harder than any "light" dressing ever could.

Why This Matters
Most people look at a plate and see a chore. I look at this and see the raw materials for a high-functioning day.

No Crash: By pairing the crunch of the vegetables with the high-fat, high-protein satiety of the bacon, cheese, and eggs, you eliminate the blood sugar rollercoaster.

Inflammation Control: By using avocado oil and avoiding the industrial seed oils found in commercial mayo, you are choosing fuel that supports your nervous system rather than inflaming it.

Efficiency: This is a one-bowl operation. It is fast, it is robust, and it is arguably the most efficient way to get everything your body needs in a single sitting.

This is my take on a rainbow slaw that actually builds infrastructure rather than tearing it down. This is the difference between eating and fuelling.

The Reset: Returning to Ancestral Intelligence
I didn't get my diplomas in Paleo and Keto because they were trends. I got them because they represent a return to metabolic sanity.

You don't need a PhD to fix your health; you need to stop playing the consumer and start acting like a human being again. Here is the operational framework:

Audit Your Pantry: If it has an ingredient list, it is a red flag. If it has an ingredient list longer than three items, throw it out.

Ditch the Seed Oils: Replace them with stable, ancestral fats. Tallow, lard, ghee, and coconut oil are chemically stable at high heat. Your ancestors ate them for a reason.

Prioritise Bioavailable Protein: You are not a cow; you don't need to graze on grains. Your body is built on protein and healthy fats.

The Single-Ingredient Rule: Buy food that was once alive. If it was raised in a field, under the sun, that is your baseline.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Isn’t saturated fat bad for my heart?
A: That is 1950s science that has been thoroughly debunked. Chronic inflammation, driven by sugar and unstable processed oils, is the real culprit behind vascular damage. Don't fear the fat; fear the processed chemical soup.

Q: I’m busy and I don’t have time to cook from scratch. How do I survive?
A: Your lack of time is a management failure. If you can spend 20 minutes scrolling through social media, you can spend 20 minutes searing a steak. It is about priorities, not time. Stop making excuses for the fuel you put in your engine.

Q: Does going Paleo/Keto mean I never eat a carb again?
A: It means you stop eating processed, refined sugar. If you want a potato, eat a potato. Just stop eating the potato that has been peeled, fried, bleached, and coated in seed oils before being shoved into a cardboard box.

The Hard Truth
You have been conditioned to believe that health is expensive and complicated. It is not. It is cheap, it is simple, and it is inconvenient.

The industry wants you to stay confused. They want you to worry about macro-nutrients while they sell you low-fat protein bars filled with synthetic fillers. They want you distracted.

The moment you decide to own your own kitchen, you take back control of your biology. You aren't just eating; you are making an executive decision about the quality of your own existence.

What is the one ingredient currently in your pantry that you know is garbage, but you’re still using?

Let’s be honest in the comments. No sugar-coating. Just the truth.

Enjoyed this breakdown? Join the "Midlife Reset" community where we cut the noise and get back to the raw, tactical basics of living better.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

1 week ago | [YT] | 54

Ian Callaghan

Heat's back this week, and someone reading this is about to neck three litres of plain water and feel worse, not better.
If you are on an SSRI, pure water is diluting your sodium. The Vagal Brake comes off your nervous system, and a small rise in temperature starts reading as panic. That is not hydration. That is drowning your cells.
The fix takes under 90 seconds and costs about ten pence. Here is me making the exact electrolyte water I drink when it is like this. Salt and all, no faff.
Watch it, then go make your own before the next hot one lands:
youtube.com/shorts/uev2TeW2WZ...

Keep your fluids up this week. Just put the minerals back in.
Pick up the wrench.

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

Ian Callaghan

Ever finish the day feeling like your brain is hunting for an off switch, but all it can find is booze, biscuits, scrolling, porn, rage, shopping, or whatever little escape hatch your system has learned to grab?

That is where the vagal brake comes in.

I mentioned it in the latest video and a few people asked what it actually means, so here is the no-bullshit version.

Your vagal brake is basically the nervous system’s dimmer switch. When it is working properly, you can slow yourself down without having to disappear from your own life. You can feel pressure without immediately reaching for the thing that wrecks you. You can have a hard day without your whole system redlining like a knackered Transit van trying to climb a hill in fifth gear.

When that brake is weak, overloaded, or completely ignored for years, your body starts looking for emergency shutdown buttons.

That is why so many people do not just “fancy a drink” after work.

They want relief.

They want the internal noise to stop.

They want their body to stop feeling like it has been plugged into the national grid.

Same with mindless scrolling. Same with sugar. Same with doom loops. Same with sitting in the car outside the house because you cannot face walking through your own front door yet.

Most self-sabotage is not stupidity. It is a nervous system under load trying to regulate itself with whatever tool is closest.

That does not mean the behaviour is harmless. It means the behaviour makes sense once you understand the system behind it.

For years, I thought I was weak, lazy, broken, undisciplined, or just a bit of a dickhead with poor impulse control. Turns out I was mostly a passenger in a system I did not understand.

Learning this stuff changed that.

The point is not to become some calm little monk floating around in linen trousers, pretending nothing bothers you. The point is to stop being dragged around by old wiring that keeps trying to solve pressure with poison, distraction, avoidance, or another round of “fuck it, I’ll start Monday.”

That is a big part of what I break down in Under Load.

Behaviour is output.

The real question is, what load is your system carrying, and what has it been using to cope?

Watch the latest video for the full context, or grab Under Load if you want the deeper breakdown of the self-sabotage loop.
www.iancallaghan.co.uk/the-shop

When your vagal brake fails and life gets heavy, what is your first impulse?

1 week ago | [YT] | 49

Ian Callaghan

Nobody warns you that quitting the booze can hand the controls straight to a sugar addicted raccoon.
You put the glass down, and a fortnight later, you are standing at the fridge at midnight, inhaling chocolate as it owes you money. That is not weakness and it is not relapse. That is Glucipher, and your blood sugar is crashing.
What is the one craving that has caught you off guard since you stopped drinking? Tell me below.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 84

Ian Callaghan

When you finally put down a deeply wired habit after decades, what is the actual biggest threat to the system?

Most people think it is the cravings that cause a relapse. It isn't. It is the deafening silence that opens up when you stop numbing the system. I just dropped a short video showing exactly what I built to replace the boredom six months after I stopped a forty-five-year habit.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 37

Ian Callaghan

My Sunday nights used to be spent drinking.

My Monday mornings were spent paying for it.

I'd convince myself I deserved a few beers because work was coming. A few would become a lot. I'd stay up later than planned, sleep like shit, wake up dehydrated, anxious, foggy and already behind before the week had even started.

That was normal for nearly forty-five years.

These days my Sunday nights look very different.

Yesterday I parked my VW T4 beside a waterfall in Wales.

No pub.

No hangover.

No anxiety about Monday.

No bargaining with myself about how much I'd drink.

Just the sound of running water, a good book, fresh air and an early night.

This morning started at 6am.

Cold water in the waterfall.

Back to the van.

Aeropress coffee.

Birdsong.

Silence.

A nervous system that feels calm instead of overloaded.

People often ask what I replaced alcohol with.

I didn't replace it with anything.

I simply stopped drinking through the things that actually make me feel good.

Nature.

Movement.

Stillness.

Good food.

Good sleep.

Presence.

The strange thing is that none of those things are expensive.

Most of them are free.

Yet they give me more peace than all the alcohol I drank over four and a half decades.

Forty-five years drinking.

Over eighteen months alcohol free.

My Sundays and Mondays are almost unrecognisable now.

How have your Sunday nights and Monday mornings changed over the years?

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 197