THE POWER OF PURITY
Avril Mair chews, cleanses and purges her way to wellness at Austria’s Vivamayr Altaussee
Icome to my senses deep in a snowdrift, having somehow strayed off the narrow path that winds its way picturesquely around Lake Altaussee and ended up embedded in several feet of pristine, crystalline powder. The air is cold and crisp, the pine-trees are hanging low with ice, and I am stuck in a hole with dusk falling. For what it’s worth, I’m also starving. I could die out here, I think. Is the pursuit of thinness really worth it?
To explain: I’m at Vivamayr in Austria, perhaps the world’s leading centre for detoxification, where the emphasis is on strict cleansing of the digestive system and re-education of eating habits. What this means in practice is an enforced diet of dry bread and herbal tea, relentless chewing – 40 times per mouthful – and the unfortunate effects of taking what are euphemistically called passage salts before breakfast (that is, if you’re allowed breakfast). Also, gentle exercise. Which is why I am ravenously hungry while trying to walk for several miles in the middle of winter. This is less of a spa trip, more self-flagellation.
But oh, it works. Those of a sensitive disposition may want to stop reading now. For the rest, Vivamayr – two medical spas in Austria, with day clinics in London and Vienna – follows the Mayr method, a treatment pioneered in the 1930s by the encouragingly long-lived Dr FX Mayr, who believed that the secret to a happy, healthy life was down to a happy, healthy digestion. The basics are simple: eating slowly, consciously and seasonally; mindfully consuming three meals a day that are made, where possible, from fresh, local ingredients; drinking plenty of water; and staying active. And, it turns out, spending a great deal of time in the bathroom. It was radical in its day, this focus on the relation between diet and disease, but now we all know about gut health – and its importance for both body and mind – Mayr has come into its own, though it is underpinned by reassuringly modern medical science.
It’s a lovely place to be, Vivamayr Altaussee, with its glorious views over lake and mountains, carpeted in snow and soundtracked by a faint jangle of cowbells. If one chooses to be deprived, depressed and – let’s face it – demented, there’s nowhere more beautiful to do so. The original Mayr Clinic could best be described as chalet-style, but this newer outpost is surprisingly streamlined and chic – though the waitresses at dinner do still wear dirndls. In summer, it’s quite the social scene with notable names in fashion returning every year – the power PR Karla Otto, the designer Alber Elbaz, the editor and consultant Caroline Issa, the make-up artist Lisa Eldridge – but when winter nights close in, it somehow becomes more serious. They stop serving food, such as it is, at 6.30pm. Lights go down soon after.
Besides the scenery, the star attraction is the clinic’s medical director Dr Sepp Fegerl, trained as both a conventional and alternative doctor, whose cheery dynamism means that he can be giving your stomach a painfully deep massage (this is a regular thing at Mayr), conveying his unease at the condition of your liver and pointing out the absurdity of living in a stressful city like London, while still displaying understanding and kindness. Weight loss is a side effect of the journey to better health here, rather than an end in itself, it is always emphasised – but his daily sessions turn into a sort of therapy as well as healing, which means both somehow become as one. Exhaustive mastication aside, there’s something deeply restorative about a week spent focusing only on oneself – every table in the dining-room has a sign showing a mobile phone and Kindle with a thick red line through them, meaning outside distractions are forbidden; though there’s Wi-Fi and TV in the rooms, you are encouraged to shut down the world at large while you come to terms with the one within.
So despite the three kilos dropped in five days, it’s the other stuff that will make me come back to Vivamayr Altaussee: the space to detox and destress, stripping back everything to find a new energy and a mind that’s as cleansed as the body. Maybe next time, though, I’ll make do without the hikes. Vivamayr Altaussee (www.vivamayr.com); from about £240 a room a night; treatments are arranged on an individual bespoke basis.
Weight loss is a side effect of the journey to better health here, rather than an end in itself