A holiday where you lose weight,
This is a good leveller. For all i know, the man at the next table may be a captain of German industry with a beautiful wife and six accomplished children with whom he shares his Bavarian castle.
But he looks just as forlorn as me, chewing and chewing and chewing on stale bread and wondering when he should take his supplements.
Mind you, this is only day two at Lanserhof Lans, just outside innsbruck, Austria, the latest Mayr clinic to be revamped on the ‘detoxification and de-acidification’ assembly line.
The hope is that by the end of the week, herr Forlornness and i will have shed all those nasty toxins, lost some weight and gained a new perspective on diet — and be ready to take on the world.
if we last that long. Because after only a few hours in this 67room, modern building overlooking soaring mountains to the north and forests to the south, my wife, Joanna, has an excruciating headache and wants to go home.
she says it’s like being in a hospital, albeit one with snazzy white floors and a zen-like calm about it. i repeat what i’ve read about going through the ‘cure crisis’ and how achieving a ‘change of milieu’ will take time and perseverance.
self-indulgent clap-trap? Well, i’m sure there’s an argument for that and i do know someone who went to a Mayr — so named after the Austrian physician Franz Xaver Mayr (1875-1965) — and developed a strange food fixation and took a year to recover.
But it worked for me two years ago at a sister Lanserhof clinic in Germany, so here’s hoping Joanna hangs in there with the Epsom salts and tasteless bread.
Lanserhof Lans has been around for almost 30 years, but has just re-opened after an eightmonth, £23 million refurb and the building of additional ‘spa suites’ clad in untreated cedar above the indoor/outdoor swimming pool (water with a 3.5per cent salt content — the average of the oceans). if you like clean lines, no clutter and absolutely nothing on the walls, then you will feel at home here. Our room has a balcony facing the mountains, bleached wooden floors and a supremely comfy bed — the latter being essential because we spend a lot of time on it. A second loo would be a welcome addition because, without labouring the point, we spend a lot of time on the one we do have. For the first couple of days you feel so wretched (well, i do) that even if there were a fully stocked bar and espresso machine, you wouldn’t be tempted at all. Mayr was the ultimate plumber. he knew how all the twists and turns of the colon worked and believed health centres in the gut. Get rid of the rubbish and the body starts to regenerate itself. Unblock the pipes and energy flows unimpeded. hunger gives
way to natural exuberance. At the start of the week, everyone sees one of the doctors, which is a chance to be completely honest about your goals.
Lanserhof is not the place to claim you drink 12 units of booze a week when you know — in my case — it’s closer to 30.
Then the doctor prescribes your eating plan, which ranges from Level 0 (a pot of herbal tea with a wedge of orange for breakfast, lunch and dinner) to Level 3/2 (porridge for breakfast, soup with protein for lunch and dinner).
Me? I’M given Level 2/1, which gets me porridge in the morning with a tiny bit of maple syrup, two boiled potatoes and protein for lunch and a pot of tea with an orange wedge for din-dins. You have to chew 30 to 40 times to break everything down before it goes on its merry way. That’s one of the Mayr’s key lessons. Another is ‘no raw after four’.
The basic package offers treatments such as two deep muscle massages, detox drainage, reflexology and my favourite, ‘detox pack with shower and liver wrap’, which involves being covered in seaweed and lying on a bed with holes in it through which hot air wafts upwards. I hope my liver enjoys it as much as I do.
There are lots of free exercise classes, lectures and cooking lessons and the whole atmosphere is serene, committed and caring. It’s like staying in a modernist monastery.
We miss the daily outdoor greet-the-day sessions at 7am because it’s minus 10c and we don’t have the kit. Well, that’s the excuse.
But we do make one foray into the outside world when we take the tram to Innsbruck through the trees. It’s an enchanting excursion that turns into a test of willpower as we saunter past a series of inviting cafes groaning with apple strudels, mulled wine and hot chocolate.
One of the highlights of the day is the alkaline bouillon served daily between 10am and noon. No calories, but it does have some flavour.
Joanna rallies after our trip to Innsbruck — but there’s no point suggesting she’s having a good time. The pay-back comes a week after we have returned home, when both of us stick to the same routine as the one at Lanserhof.
It’s as if our bodies won’t let us go back to our old, Kettle Chip ways. I am bursting with energy and all the smugness of the newly converted, even if I know a longterm commitment to the Mayr way is out of the question.
Two weeks on and I still have no desire to eat red meat and my coffee consumption has been cut dramatically. On the alcohol front, normal service has been resumed — but every sip is savoured.
Oh, I have lost 8lb, too.