That’s the weigh to do it!
Forget rain-soaked boot camps, says Maria McErlane – slim in the Moroccan sunshine
After six months off the demon gaspers and an overindulgent holiday season, I found myself 15lb heavier than my fighting weight. Horror. For ladies of a certain age, this is no longer Rubenesque or plumptious but matronly. One step away from elasticated slacks, a light perm and a comfy slip on. As I intend to march defiantly into my dotage, something needed to be done.
Boot camps somehow seemed too brutal. The thought of rainsoaked yomps across rough terrain at 5am, being screamed at by sadistic ex military gentlemen serving gruel for breakfast, would almost certainly end with me doing a stretch in jail.
Yet floating around in towelling robes sniffing lavender wasn’t going to kickstart a sluggish middle-aged metabolism or get me on the cover of Sports Illustrated. So, I found Inspa. A compromise between the two.
Le Palais Paysan (Country Palace) is a Brutalist style boutique hotel set in the foothills of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. Completed three years ago by the Belgian architect Philippe Taburiaux and his partner Horst Redman, it appears stark by day yet magical at night.
An easy 35-minute transfer from Marrakech airport, with the last few kilometres on dirt tracks through villages of mud and sand built dwellings, eerily devoid of inhabitants.
Several times a year the hotel is taken over by the Inspa team of nutritionists, masseurs, fitness coaches, yoga teachers and amazing ‘clean food’ chefs.
There are only 16 rooms along with a swimming pool, hammam, outdoor hot tub, riding stable, petting farm and olive groves.
I was advised to give up coffee a week before arrival in order to avoid the headaches and irritability associated with caffeine detox. There would also be no wheat, dairy, alcohol, salt or sugar on the menu. It’s a tough call, as you want to have a nice time but the thought of no booze? How would we pass the time?
I was with my lovely friend Anna who trained as a ballet dancer and is super flexible (Memo to self: far too pretty, fit and popular to take again).
On arrival we were given our timetables for the week. Before breakfast we had a sunrise jog/ walk of 45 minutes (11,000 steps) before feasting on magic porridge or nut muesli or fruit or some form of egg concoction. All washed down with lashings of herbal tea.
An hour and a half later came our training sessions. Gemma and Cath, our fitness gurus, were little pocket rockets burst- ing with power and energy. Twice a day they would put us through our paces with all manner of routines set to tone, tighten, stretch and reawaken muscles long dormant.
As these classes were before the sun was too hot and again later when it began to cool, being able to exercise outside was a major bonus, the beauty of the snow-capped mountains a necessary distraction.
Our group of 18 women ranged in age from 25 to 57, with lawyers, beauticians, city traders, media types, mothers, and an American nurse who had just returned from an ebola hospital in Sierra Leone. We also had one man who we threatened daily with oestrogen injections should he step out of line.
Yoga came before lunch and for me it was a frustrating affair, knowing that my body was once capable of Olga Korbut bends and stretches but no longer.
I was forced to acknowledge that since I taught high-energy aerobics in the mid-Eighties, 30 years had passed. But slowly, as the week progressed, I was able to feel my body coming back to life, if not back to being 25.
Anna felt our yoga teacher Dubliner Joanne King to be one of the best. No judgment or showboating and an intuitive understanding of the mind/ body/spirit trinity. We fell a little bit in love with her.
Lunch was my favourite meal of the day. Always a colourful array of salads, seeds, greens, protein (chicken or fish) and healthy carbs. The top-rated juice was broccoli and kiwi – trust me on this, it’s delicious.
Three days in and as something of a chocoholic, I had a very real sugar withdrawal with migraine headaches, nausea and sickness plus a total inability to stay awake, meant an entire day was wasted in bed. I was genuinely shocked by the power of the white stuff and vowed to give it up for good. Easier said than done...
Included in our timetables were one-on-one fitness assessments, nutritional advice and life enhanc- ing massage which slightly blew our minds. It was a cross between ‘sport, deep tissue and witchcraft’.
On our final evening a cookery demonstration gave us recipes for all the yummy health-giving foodstuffs we had enjoyed. As I had foolishly mentioned my time teaching aerobics, I had to take a 15-minute warm-up for our final class. The Inspa girls had downloaded Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, Rick Astley’s
Never Gonna Give You Up and the Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men.
For 15 minutes it really was the Eighties with us all singing at the top of our voices, all thoughts of hip replacements, calcified knees or stress incontinence lay in another land called the future.
Two weeks on and I’m still off sugar. I have lost 8lb and regained my mojo. Begone elasticated leisurewear...