I was most confused when I arrived at Mount Med, Austria’s latest medical wellness facility. Rosy-cheeked guests bounced about in sports gear. Staff in Tyrolean garb wore huge grins. And the interiors were like stepping into Ralph Lauren’s take on super-luxe chalet. There was even a bar serving mocktails. What the devil was going on?
At these wellness gaffs, usually fun is “off ze menu”; staff seem deadly serious and zombie-like guests nursing caffeine-withdrawal headaches ogle you like they’re contemplating cannibalism. But not at this spa.
“That’s because we’re achieving detox and autophagy without guests feeling hungry or losing muscle mass; our nutritional cure is high protein, low carb, no sugar,” explains the aesthetic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Alexander Papp, who founded Mount Med last year with his twin brother Dr Stephan Papp, a specialist in trauma surgery, orthopaedics and sports medicine. During their studies, Alexander says, “the doctors taught us to believe only in the scalpel. I thought, there must be a way to offer patients a better quality of wound healing, scar tissue and generally improving the lasting effect of surgery.”
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So he persuaded his boss to give him five patients: “The worst of the worst — Germans with big beer bellies,” he says with a laugh. For four weeks before surgery he fed them sugar-free, low-carb diets. “And… quelle surprise,” he reveals with a flourish. “The wound healing was astonishing, the skin’s structure, elasticity, quality of collagen were tremendously improved and — interestingly — the patients reported that their feelings of depression were gone and their mindset was more positive.”
Fifteen years and 2,000 patients later, the Papps have created their Mylife Changer protocol, which I’m at the clinic in Oberau to trial: a plan of five high-protein meals a day, plus vitamin infusions and elixirs to increase autophagy and detoxing for every cell.
“I’m also a big fan of ancient European medicine,” Alexander continues, “so over the past seven years I’ve been visiting monks in monasteries and farmers up on the hills to see what traditional ingredients and recipes they used for their healing.”
The resort’s transformation room
MICHAEL HUBER PHOTOGRAPHY
The Papps recommend a two-week stint in their 60-room wellness clinic, which is constructed around a 12th-century building, followed by four weeks at home. This gives time for the renewal of cells and reduction of visceral fat, and for new eating habits to be drilled into the psyche. I’m here for just five days, but thanks to the boundless energy I have from my 60 per cent animal protein-rich diet, I pack it in. Every morning I leg-it down to the charming wood-panelled dining room to open my surprise bento breakfast box, filled with different cold meats, veg, sprouting seeds and juice. (Athletes get double portions and there’s also a vegan option, and — hallelujah — you’re allowed coffee.) I hike up the hills and into the forest. I try foot gymnastics — a lot of picking up squishy balls with my toes and working on strength, mobility, fascia and balance with Wolfgang Peer, a former Swedish ski-team coach who believes “it all starts with your feet”.
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In the medical centre, I undergo integrative diagnostics, blood testing, posture analysis and breath analysis, from which the medical team figure out the baseline from which to work on my health issues and longevity dreams. Should guests need further investigative work, an ultrasound or MRI scan, Stephan is head radiologist at a private hospital just 15 minutes down the road. (Which is where all the blood analysis takes place and why the results are so speedy.)
During moments of downtime, I head to my comfy chalet suite, for a stint in the infrared sauna in the bathroom or in a rocking chair on the balcony, nicking a few sunny rays while gazing at cows scoffing mountain grass. Then it’s down to the indoor-outdoor pool for a power swim and a session in the hot-cold therapy rooms. Even these are jolly — the steam room is decorated like a woodland glade with tree-stump stools, while the massive (naked-only) sauna has vast screens showing films of the Tyrolean mountains throughout the seasons. In the evenings I have enough energy to sip birch-syrup mocktails by the fireplace in the double-height sitting room while nattering to other guests.
The relaxation room
MICHAEL HUBER PHOTOGRAPHY
After a few days, the oddest thing happens; my hunger vanishes. I have zero food noise, because my sugar levels have lowered and my insulin is stabilised, so the urge to hunt for sugar is gone. My tastebuds have recalibrated: the morning cucumber sticks taste sweet like melon. I feel perky and my brain is buzzing with creativity. “Men absolutely love this place because they’re not being starved,” whispers a member of staff who previously worked at a Mayr fasting clinic. “The high-protein diet is much easier for them.”
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I meet guests who are preparing or recovering from surgery or chemotherapy, or are here to boost their longevity. After five days, I feel like I’ve swallowed a magic pill. Yes, I’ve lost a couple of kilos, but more importantly a kilo of fat has been converted into a kilo of muscle. I’m bouncing off the walls with energy and ideas, my sugar cravings are in remission and I have a new admiration for protein.
“My mission,” Alexander says, “is to teach my guests how to stay healthy so they can keep doctor’s visits to a minimum.” He adds with a twinkle: “Because I hate doctors! Who wants to see those assholes!” An Austrian doctor making fun of himself. See what I mean? This place is fun!
A five-night Medical Wellness package with accommodation costs from €2,199, mountmedresort.com
Less cellulite? Yes please
Galyna Selezneva at the Lanesborough Club & Spa uses the Cellu M6 Infinity machine to reduce cellulite
DAVID COTSWORTH
I grew up with a terror of cellulite. Probably because I’m half-French, and the French abhor “la cellulite”. My frolicky teen summers, night-clubbing on the Côte d’Azur, were often blighted by the fear that, despite my being a slip of a thing, someone might notice a dreaded orange-peel thigh.
Aged twentysomething, while at my first glossy magazine job, I was sent to trial LPG Endermologie, a machine that sucked and pummelled and promised to bust cellulite. After 12 hour-long sessions, I went on a family holiday. When I emerged in a bikini, my little sister yelled like a town crier: “Your cellulite! It’s gone!” That was the starting gun of a very good summer… But to my chagrin, I soon learnt that to keep the lumps and bumps at bay, regular maintenance Endermologie sessions are needed.
Twenty-five years later, my ears pricked up when I heard that Galyna Selezneva, the Lanesborough Club and Spa’s resident aesthetic and longevity doctor, was launching the latest LPG machine, Cellu M6 Infinity, which promised a lot more than smooth skin. “Thirty years of research and development has resulted in this device,” Selezneva told me, delivering not only, she says, cellulite reduction and lymphatic drainage but a better VSS [vitality, stress and sleep] protocol.
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Tempted, I slipped through the glamorous club’s secret basement door and slithered into the “suit”: a bodystocking that allowed the therapist to glide the machine over my flesh, pinching and rolling it as if it were dough. Some people find it a bit painful, while others find it relaxing. I’m in the latter camp and need a firm nudge when it’s time to flip over.
“Even just one single treatment has been proven to boost HRV [heart rate variability] by up to 76 per cent, reduce cortisol by 19 per cent, stimulate the vagus nerve and significantly improve sleep,” Selezneva says. “And there is up to 4 per cent increase in leptin, the satiety hormone.” While this will hardly compete with fat jabs, Selezneva says her patients report better eating behaviour because they are less stressed, so don’t comfort eat. Sure enough, post-treatment, although it was tea time, I didn’t pounce on chocolate. That night I slept astonishingly well and my Oura ring showed my heart-rate variability metrics were up — indicating an adaptable, well-recovered body.
While it does seem wild that we can study exoplanet atmospheres for signs of life but still haven’t found a cure for cellulite, these days I’m far more interested in my longevity markers. If this machine can help to raise my stubborn HRV, lower the high cortisol that wakes me up too early and give my lymphatic system a good going over, I’m into it. And if my cellulite is massaged into temporary submission, I’m all over it. Even if (sigh) my miniskirt days are a distant memory… Alice B-B
The Elite Cellulite Remedy at the Lanesborough Club & Spa, £300 for a 60-min treatment, lanesboroughclubandspa.com
