This is what its actually like to spend three weeks at a Mayr clinic

Everyone starts their day early, at 6.45am, with a glass of lukewarm magnesium sulphate, known as ‘bitter water’, designed to stimulate detox via the liver and gallbladder. It also has a robust laxative effect. I pace my room until everything that needs to emerge has emerged and the gripes have settled.

Five massages per week are included in the method

You sit at the same table for every meal and, ideally, eat the same thing every day. My first breakfast is the infamous stale roll, used as training food to get you chewing, and a lopsided pyramid of thinly shaved Alpine cheese. The next day I switch to scrambled egg on gluten-free toast and settle there for the duration.

Lunch and supper always comprise soup (an absolute revelation of taste explosions) plus a delicate pile of one protein-rich food: it feels as if they’ve raided the local deli with a wide selection of cheeses, smoked meat or fish, and the occasional vegetable spread. Being vegan here would be incredibly dull. Mayr clinics used to be very strict about eating in silence, and the dining staff would loiter while you stoically masticated, wagging a finger if you talked. Here you’re left to your own devices and, while the dining rooms aren’t exactly buzzing, there are plenty of couples and groups of friends chatting over their curd cheese, bresaola, or smoked salmon.

It seems a curious protocol for detox, particularly the insistence on dairy; however, after years of being vilified, the cheese cohort is fighting back. Recent research shows that lactic bacteria in cheese microbiota can be transferred to the human gut, with very beneficial results. Cheese also contains the highest levels of C15.0, a good-guy saturated fat dubbed ‘the longevity molecule’. Once again, science may vindicate Mayr.

There’s a definite hint of the Wes Andersons in the Kneipping area. Up to eight of us sit in a semi-circle with our feet in basins of warm water. Every so often, an alarm clock pings, and someone pads into the circular pool and marches stoically three times around in the frigid water. Up and down, back and forth for three circuits.