RECOVERY AFTER A FASTING PERIOD.
After a long fasting you need to start eating somehow. This is normally done under strict control in hospital conditions, or under the same strict self control if you are not in a hospital and perform you therapeutic fasting at home conditions. This period of transition from fasting to a regular eating is called recovery period. The recovery period is the most important part of fasting therapy, much more important than the fasting itself. With all it's importance fasting period is mainly preparation of the body for further "right" function during the recovery period.
     Apparently the results of fasting therapy depend on the recovery diet.. The most well known recovery diets from Dr. H.Shelton and Prof. Y.Nikolaev include 3 basic rules:
   1. start eating with intake of liquid carbohydrates in the form of fruit/ vegetable juices
   2. make slow, gradual increase of daily dosage
   3. restrict the food to vegetarian dishes for the first few days/weeks.
   No fats, salt, spices or complex dressings during the first weeks of recovery.
Bread and solid foods must be included gradually over the period of several days.

   I call this above diet CARBOHYDRATE RECOVERY diet, for its' stress on eating carbohydrates right after the end of fasting. This is important aspect of the diet as f will be explained later in this text. Carbohydrate recovery was tested clinically for over 40 years by prof. Nikolaev in Russia and for more than 30 years by Dr. H Shelton in the US. Many people got positive results with such a type of recovery after many days of fasting. However while practicing this carbohydrate type of recovery diet we noticed it's practical inconveniences. The practical experience made us note further theoretical controversy of carbohydrate recovery diet as well. Here is the outline of practical and theoretical shortcomings the way I see it.

   INCONVENIANCES OF CARBOHYDRATE RECOVERY DIET.
After the long fasting your body is already depleted of proteins and is hunger for them. Your body needs proteins(and partly-fats) to recover the vital tissues that were "eaten up" in the process of fasting( This is normally true in case of long fast and not over weighted person). Instead you give it carbohydrates and make it:
   1.  break the already established type of metabolism - the one of "no carbohydrates" selfdigesting. This is very difficult to do at once, but you give it fructose/sugars and your body has to digest it somehow. How? It tries to "switch back" to include carbohydrates into the diet and this feels as sharp "break" for the body. Anyone who did it after " acidotic crisis" will understand me.
   2.  digest the carbohydrates with glands weakened in the course of fasting. This is enormous loading for the glands like spleen, liver, pancreas.
   For example during 2 weeks of fasting your body hasn't been using organs responsible for carbohydrates utilization. Those organs have shrunk and got "eaten up"- as every part of the body that was NOT used during the time of fasting. Now quite of sudden you intake carbohydrates and cause those little and shrunk organs work to utilize the carbohydrates. Feed those organs first! Let them grow! Give them proteins to recover and to grow and THEN, after that they recover their strength, make them work!
OK, the logic of prof. Nikolaev was that if you eat carbohydrates only the body will HAVE TO go on using it's own protein and fat resources and this will result in further " clean up" of all the protein and fat depots. Because to utilize carbohydrates the body will need fats and proteins and will take them from it's own resources, from it's internal resources. True, that does work that way. However before using internal proteins and fats to utilize the" external" carbohydrates the body will have to "readjust" itself back to "regular" type of metabolism. The body will be forced to switch to the regular metabolism - the one which is using all three food components -carbohydrates, proteins and fats. But why do you need to go through such a painful switch if you are still interested in cleaning up your body's protein and fat depots? Then it's much easier to on fasting! Why to eat carbohydrates only? This is like 180 degrees switch for the body - it switched to internal resources once in the beginning of your fasting, now it has to switch to use MORE of internal resources - because it needs to digest carbohydrates with all those LITTLE protein and fat resources that it has now after the fasting.

   In fact that carbohydrates "recovery" means that you still go on using internal protein resources of your body. It means that even when you start eating "by Nikolaev"/ carbohydrates you go on "stretching" you body resources nonetheless. You don't really give your body to "recover". And that's why on carbohydrate "recovery" you feel still weak and depleted of energy. That is the reason why you don't gain your weight and your strength for a long time after you start eating. Your pure body that made all this work of eating up itself now is "stretched" MORE: being depleted of proteins now it has to do the tremendous work of digesting carbohydrates only. Who once tried it knows how that feels.

   DICUSSION AND QUESTIONS:
   1. So after all the considerations should carbohydrate recovery diet be discarded?
- Certainly not. Carbohydrate recovery is good in one respect: it was tested clinically for over 40 years by prof. Nikolaev in Russia, for more than 30 years by Dr. H Shelton in the US and people REMAINED ALIVE during such a recovery after long fasts. That is very important. You can use this type of recovery and remain alive. It is important. There were enough people in the history of therapeutic fasting who had successfully fasted more than 30 days, but died in the process of recovery. Uneducated about the dieting after fast those people died mainly because of intestine blockage.
  - If that fits you personal goals -go on ""Nikilaev"/ carbohydrates recovery. But beware that the actual time of "fasting"/sickness is longer than just the time of "not eating". Actual time of procedure includes "recovery" diet as well. If you did 2 weeks of fast, add to it 2-3 more weeks of carbohydrates recovery, then the actual time of you being "on therapy" will be ~5 weeks. This is the time of your "inconvenience", weakness, time of you feeling under treatment. It's not accidental that they always say that on the first days of recovery patients need sometimes lay in the bed - so weak they feel.
  2. What can be proposed instead of carbohydrate recovery diet?
   Protein recovery diet. I'd like you to know that there is another way of recovery which may serve your personal goals better than "carbohydrate recovery". It may serve you better, it may not. But what is certain that it makes the fasting therapy LESS EXHAUSTING AND MORE PLEASANT EXPERIENCE. That's for sure.
   Here is the description of sample alternative recovery diet .
   Sample protein recovery diet after 10 and more days of fasting
   What you WILL have on protein recovery:
1. Energy and power during the period of recovery, fast recovery of your muscle mass
2. Ability to eat regular foods after recovery (carotenes, carbohydrates with no weakness)
3. Stable confident moods
   What you WILL NOT have on protein recovery:
1.  weakness during the period of recovery
2.  uncontrollable hunger("animal" hunger, "zhor"),
3. unstable moods on sharp "perestroika" to carbohydrate diet.

  

   HOW DOES THE PROTEIN RECOVRY DIET WORK? DISCUSSION AND QUESTIONS :
   You may say that in Nikolaev's/carbohydrate recovery diet you also gradually add carbohydrates to internal proteins and fats making the switch gradual, actually very gradual. That's true. Absolutely.
   So what's the real functional difference between Nikolaev's/carbohydrate recovery diet and the proposed protein recovery?
   -On proteins you RECOVER first, and only then, after that you gain strength you proceed to switching THE TYPE of metabolism. That's the only difference.
But let's see what this one difference results in:
   --You get organs restored, you get your muuscles restored, you get your "eaten up" resources restored and then, only then you switch your body's metabolism. You get your liver restored, you get you pancreas recovered, you get your essential digesting glands recovered. And those organs recovery is made by DNA code, anew. This recovered tissue is going to be a new, fresh tissue grown instead of possible weak tissues eaten up during the fasting. Actually when you recover on protein you do NOT have a feeling of hunger: Here is why: If the external protein is already digested by the body, the body goes on eating it's own resources, no problem, you go on fasting. just the way it was eating them before.
Then switching to carbohydrates becomes celebration rather than exhausting "sickness" time. Then you want it , then you eat sweets and feel good and strong and in a good cheerful mood.
   In fact protein recovery technique means continuation of the "fasting metabolism" in your regular life. During the fasting your body switched to "no sugar- no carbohydrates" type of metabolism. This was extremely good for your body and resulted in the clean -up of many protein and fat "depots". Now as you go on feeding your body with "external" proteins it does take them as if it was your body proteins - and digests them perfectly. In fact you can stay on such a recovery diet quite long - perhaps indefinitely. This is normalization of your body protein metabolism. Which is one more advantage of protein recovery technique. After that all the protein needs of your body will be satisfied you will feel the need for carbohydrates and THEN the switching to carbohydrates nutrition will be NATURAL. Then eating sweet fruits will be easy and it won't feel as enormous burden and hard break in your body.

   The question is if this technique wouldn't harm your body somehow? The question is if there are side effects after a long use of protein recovery diet?
  

Below are the examples of 2 people who have been using protein recovery diet for the last 25 years.