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.

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…