Week at £5,000 Austrian wellness retreat ends woman's cycle of extreme dieting

Lucy Holden, 35, travelled to the Mayrlife Medical Health Resort in Austria intending to lose weight, but after a week of highly restrictive regimes and alternative treatments she said she abandoned extreme dieting and accepted her fluctuating body size.

Holden, who told her story in a first-person account for a national publication, described a schedule of tiny, ritualised meals, intensive water-based exercise and a series of procedures she said were aimed at reducing fat and resetting the body. The clinic advertises programmes that start at about £5,000 a week and is visited by celebrities and models, Holden noted.

Holden said she was served two tiny crackers for lunch that she was instructed to chew 60 times each, followed by a bowl of nearly tasteless vegetable broth she was told to “chew” to convince her stomach it was full. She described lying on a water bed swaddled in towels with a bag of pine bark strapped to her chest as part of the clinic’s regimen. Other treatments she underwent included cryotherapy at about -180C, a Swedish sauna set at 90C, lymphatic drainage, mud wraps and watsu water massage. Exercise sessions included swimming 20 laps of the pool twice a day.

At the clinic Holden said a body scan showed her weight at 83 kilograms (13 stone), the heaviest she has recorded. “They said I needed to lose two stone,” she wrote. Holden also said the scan report detailed the distribution of fat across her body; she called that level of detail intrusive but said it initially fuelled her desire to continue with restrictive practices.

Holden recounted a long history of dieting and problematic relationships with food that began in childhood. She said she first began calorie counting at age 12, at 14 passed out from eating very little while on holiday, and maintained an exercise obsession into her late teens. She told of experimenting with extreme fad diets in adulthood, including eating only pak choi for a week while at university and subsisting on low-calorie meals while working a physically demanding job.

Last year Holden said she tried the prescription weight-loss medication tirzepatide — commonly known by the brand name Mounjaro — injecting once a week for four weeks before stopping because of severe headaches. She described the current surge in use of such drugs as making dieting “more invisible” and increasing pressure on women to appear effortlessly thin.

By the fifth day at the resort, Holden said she reached a breaking point. She described going to bed early and crying; the next day she put on trainers, left the clinic and walked to a nearby bar she had noticed since arriving. There she ate two bratwurst and drank several glasses of white wine, and said she immediately felt a return of sociability and emotional wellbeing.

“The chatter in bars and restaurants, and the immediate bond that’s possible with other people who’ve chosen joy over deprivation,” she wrote, summarised as the social pleasures she was unwilling to trade for further weight loss. By the end of the week Holden said she had lost 4 pounds, a result she described as “fine” compared with the emotional cost of the restrictive programme.

Four months after her visit, Holden reported feeling relaxed about her weight for the first time and said she could not imagine returning to extreme dieting. She said some of the treatments at Mayr had been “hilarious,” even if she doubted their efficacy, but that the experience had given her “crystal clarity” about priorities.

Holden framed her experience within broader pressures on women about body size and appearance. She noted that society and celebrities can reinforce ideals of thinness early in life and said that while fleeting thoughts about wanting to be thinner may persist, they felt less dominant following her week in Austria. She also reflected that some of her past behaviours — prolonged restriction combined with excessive exercise and a single attempted purge in adolescence — would likely meet clinical definitions of an eating disorder, even if she had not previously applied that label to herself.

Medical experts and patient advocates caution that extreme caloric restriction, rapid weight loss and use of invasive procedures can carry physical and psychological risks. Symptoms such as blackouts, severe headaches and emotional instability are commonly reported consequences of inadequate nutrition and abrupt medication side effects. Prescription medications for weight management, including tirzepatide, are intended to be used under medical supervision and are associated with side-effect profiles that vary between patients.

Mayrlife and similar clinics market curated programmes blending nutrition, detoxification treatments, monitoring and wellbeing therapies. The remedies and philosophies promoted at such resorts range widely; some attract clients seeking quick pre-event weight change while others seek longer-term lifestyle adjustment. Holden’s account points to the social and emotional trade-offs people weigh when considering structured weight-loss programmes and increasingly popular pharmaceutical options.

Holden’s account emphasises a personal shift: she said she now values social connection and emotional stability over pursuing an ever-lower number on the scale. Her experience underlines ongoing tensions between cultural pressures to be thin, the rise of medicalised weight-loss solutions, and the personal harms reported by some people who pursue stringent dieting strategies.