Iknew I’d got fat again. My face was puffy, no one said how well I looked any more. And besides, none of my clothes fitted. One skirt might just have shrunk, but all of them, no. I was eating too much, and in a nervous, gobblegobble way. It was time I took myself back to the Mayr for an MOT; it wasn’t cheap, but then neither was buying a whole new wardrobe. Besides, I wouldn’t spend any money on anything else while I was there.
Three years ago I booked myself into the Mayr Health Spa Golfhotel on Lake Worthersee, in the foothills of the Austrian Alps. I was exhausted, had put on lots of weight and developed a horrible rash whenever I was in strong sunlight which had ruined a series of expensive holidays. An Austrian friend recommended this place she said it specialised in detoxification, and taught you how to eat so you never got fat again. She also said that it helped you to get pregnant, but that wasn’t the reason I wanted to go.
Dr Mayr, an Austrian dietician, believed in the benefits of ‘cleansing’ the intestines regularly to remove toxins, and chewing all your food into a pap before you swallow. It worked for him: he was well into his nineties when he died, and looks repulsively healthy on all of the posters. But it means that in the clinic you eat very little, and what you do eat doesn’t stay inside very long rushed through by a morning dose of Epsom salts. Mayr also believed that a cleaner intestine makes you more fertile.
In two weeks, I lost a stone and my sunlight allergy vanished; I was a convert to the Mayr cure.
For the next two and half years, I ate no wheat and chewed every mouthful up to 50 times. Another stone melted away. But last autumn, the bad ways began to creep back in and after the three-week Christmas marathon, my weight seemed set like concrete on my thighs.
So back I came. The clinic looked just the same a wooden chalet on the banks of the lake, with onion-domed churches stretching up towards the mountain tops, and a white wedding-cake schloss across the water. It made me think of the Thirties Chalet School stories, set in a fictitious English girls’ school in the Austrian Tyrol: not for the Golfhotel the extravagances of marble and plate glass. Here the sauna leads directly on to the lake, and you can run through a gully of weeds and throw yourself right in, and this term I wasn’t the new girl any more. And not being a new girl, I decided to arrive via Venice, which I knew from last time was only three hours and E30 away by train; that way, at least my last weekend in civilisation would be delicious.
I was a bit worried that I’d be lonely last time I had come here with a friend, and everyone else had been German. But now the place was half full of English because Fergie had raved about its benefits in the Daily Mail. I had two brand-new friends allocated to my table. One of them seemed to know everyone whose heroin addiction had been plastered over the papers in the early Eighties, so we were entertained by the next chapter in the lives of ageing aristocratic junkies.
Nell, let’s call her, was, like me, an old hand; so was the German property developer on our table who came annually to get rid of a year of client dinners and play a lot of golf the hotel stands on the oldest golf course in Austria.
One of the other English girls was there to help herself get pregnant.
I was on tea only for the first week. Everyone else was chewing stale spelt rolls. I felt so ill for 48 hours, I don’t think I could have kept anything solid down at all. The doctor, the masseur, and the woman whose job it was to immerse my hips alternately in hot and freezing water all beamed with satisfaction. ‘It’s the toxins leaving your body,’ they chorused. I wished they’d leave me more quietly.
By Saturday, I felt better and Nell and I decided to go to Salzburg, Mozart’s home town, for the weekend. The clinic packed us a picnic (stale spelt roll, smoked trout pate, and by now I had moved on to potatoes, plus our obligatory Epsom salts)
and we set off by train. It rained the whole time, so we spent two days in a cafe, opposite the cathedral, watching Japanese tourists discover sachertorte and drinking fruit tea. Perhaps that was why we spent E300 on Mozart Kugeln chocolates which we had to lug back to Britain I think I was suffering from bulimia by proxy, or maybe Nell was a bad influence. In the evening we went to the opera I was hoping for Mozart, but it was Jesus Christ Superstar, in German.
Three days later, we were in a pedalo out on the lake (very good exercise for the thighs, the gym instructor said) when a storm blew up one afternoon.
Any port in a storm, we thought, so we headed to shore, tied the pedalo to a strange restaurant’s quay and sat congratulating ourselves on our escape over fruit tea. When we looked, the pedalo had vanished. We tracked it down, being buffeted against the rocks, and had to call on two passers-by to help us pull it out of the water and on to someone’s lawn. It was four days before the weather was good enough to rescue it again.
After two weeks, the potatoes were beginning to pall, but I’d lost 10lb, my skin was sparkling and I could fit into all the clothes I’d brought with me just in case. I wish I could say that I’d saved the money the clinic had cost me by not spending anything or needing to buy any new clothes. But sadly, we found a shop in the local town with a Prada sale, so I got a whole new wardrobe anyway.
It should last me till I go again in two years’ time.
Out and about in Austria GETTING THERE Ryanair (www. ryanair.com) flies to Klagenfurt, the nearest airport, half an hour away. Or you could fly to Vienna and then on to Klagenfurt. Easyjet (www.easyjet.com) flies to Venice, three hours away by train.
WHAT TO DO The mornings are full of chewing, massages, kneipping (alternate hot and cold baths) or hay packs for your liver. In the afternoons, play golf, watch DVDs, have a sauna, take the pedalo out or swim in the lake.
Visit the Schloss Herberstein near Graz and see its private zoo.
Take the boat (or the bus) to Klagenfurt for the afternoon. At the weekend, you can nip off to Venice, Vienna or Salzburg, all of which are only three hours away by train. But really, you are not supposed to be doing anything at all. Dr Mayr thought idleness good for the digestion.
SHOPPING Rikki Reiner in Klagenfurt (Alter Platz 1) has a fantastic selection of Prada, John Galliano, Jean Muir etc the first floor perfect people who want to feel happy about having lost weight. Palmers (opposite Rikki Reiner) is the only shop to sell sexy thermal underwear. Other than that, you can get nice flip- flops for about a quid.
There seemed to be some good sachertorte in the cafes, but I didn’t eat it. And great-looking chocolate in Salzburg.
WHEN TO GO The Golfhotel is open all year round, but the early summer months are perfect because the lake is warm enough to swim in. In the winter you can nearby, although, being Carinthia, the mountains are quite low.
SPOTTING The Duchess of York and Sir Clement Freud have both stayed at the Mayr Health Spa.
Mayr Health Spa Golfhotel: need to know Room Wooden, and decorated in Seventies Austrian gasthaus style. You get a bath or a shower Category A gets you a balcony facing the lake as well.
Food Ha ha ha. Breakfast is tea, stale spelt rolls or potatoes, yoghurt and a variety of spreads. For lunch, if you’re on potatoes, you get vegetables as well.
There is no supper. Dr Mayr didn’t believe in eating at night.
Who goes there English county ladies, Austrian toffs and German bankers.
The golfers eat in a separate area.
Cost 360 Travel (020 7439 4319) offers one week at the Mayr from Pounds 1,250 per person, including flights, full board, initial and final medical examinations, one abdominal massage, one detoxifying massage, three special massages, one alkaline detoxification bath, one food incompatibility test, one alkaline powder and three hay liver packs.
Mayr Health Spa, Golfhotel am Worthersee, Golfstrasse 2, A-9082 Maria Worth-Dellach, Kamten, Austria (00 43 427 325 110; www.golfhotel.at)
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