As a beauty journalist, I know I’ve been spoilt. I’ve been flown all over the world to the most luxurious spas and pampered in the most exotic locations. But no matter how fluffy the robes, and how toasty the underfloor heating, there’s really only one result we women are after: does it make you thinner?It may be superficial, but it’s true.

So when I heard all the wonderful reports about an Austrian health spa where sleep, good health and, most crucially, weight loss, were guaranteed, I decided it was probably worth paying for. I wanted that bikini body that I had read about so often. A drop of 10lb should do it.

The Mayr clinic spa has found fans among the rich and famous: Silvio Berlusconi recently called in some of its top practitioners to help him to destress; The Duchess of York has visited and Oprah Winfrey is said to be a fan. In what I now believe could have been clinically proven to be a moment of madness, I decided to max out my credit card and pay to join them. This spa was said to change lives. Maybe I would find myself next to the duchess and we could talk about our self-esteem issues and the benefits of dry-skin brushing. I came crashing back to earth when I was shown the single bed in my Spartan pine bedroom. A great emphasis was put on the toilet with good reason: it had a shelf so that you could examine your own output. The theory of this spa was to detoxify the system with salt-induced “bowel clearing”. Every day. There’s a reason why some call this “the bottom clinic”.

On arrival, the staff gave me a basic fitness MOT, measuring my blood pressure and so on but did not, as I was to learn later, perform the one test that would have made the crucial difference to my stay. Meanwhile, I tried to make the best of my diet of herbal tea and, twice daily bread roll. I was instructed to chew each mouthful 50 times. The Mayr belief is that the corrupted intestine is the root of all evil and chewing sends a signal that kickstarts digestion. The chewing theory also means that the digestive system analyses the composition of the food so knows how to digest it.

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Although it was never mentioned explicitly, most of my fellow “patients” were there to lose weight. Like a good eating disorder, however, the clinic dressed up its methods — The Cure — as a way of clearing your gut of bad bacteria. Doctors massaged my stomach and talked about how The Cure was working on my intestines. They wore white coats and spoke with such evangelism in accents that were pure Brüno — how could I possibly not have confidence in them? I chewed like a sheep on cud.

Unfortunately, the huge task of chewing also put an end to conversation, which was a shame as life at the Mayr was really quite dull. Nearly all the other guests were British, mainly female executives at the top of their game and very competitive beneath the democratically white-robed exteriors. Nearly all were, I would guess, a size 12 and were planning to drop a dress size during their week-long stay. The exception to this rule were a couple of women who might have been the wrong end of the BMI scale and were here as a last-ditch attempt to get their first stones rolling.

There were also a few German couples. One lady wore a dirndl down for supper with her husband one evening. This seemed a waste, given that it was impossible to make dinner last longer than 20 minutes despite the amount of chewing.

With little prospect of romance, entertainment or even food to occupy me, what followed were ten days of misery. I was so hungry I couldn’t sleep; I was too weak to use my teach-yourself-German CDs and there was no sign of the duchess.

Exercise was limited to some 1930s-style calisthenics (The Cure would not work if we overexerted ourselves we were told) or the tedium of Nordic walking, which involved strolling through a nearby village ignoring the signs for ice cream .

The only reason I stayed was because I was losing weight. I had to be. Everyone lost at least 7lb, and most ten, in as many days and they all wore their weight-loss like a medal. I resisted being weighed. Then, all excited, I stood on the scales. I had lost 1lb. One bloody pound had cost me £2,000.

The people in white coats were poker-faced and said that The Cure hadn’t started working yet — despite having said the whole way through that my intestine was cleansing out a dream. I could tell they were not happy; after all, The Cure has made all its business around weight-loss, despite the dressing up of a fabulously healthy gut. I was not a success story.

With the full horror of negligible weight loss and a black hole in my bank account confronting me, I promptly did what Oprah wouldn’t have done — burst into tears, changed my flight and got merrily drunk on the plane home. Explaining this to a doctor friend back in London, he suggested I get my thyroid checked. One of the most basic health checks and the people in white coats hadn’t offered it.

My thyroid, it turned out, was underactive, which explained why I had been unable to shift any extra weight over the previous few months by conventional means. It also explained why I was tired most of the time. I have now been prescribed thyroxine and the problem seems under control, so you could argue the Austrians did me a favour. I won’t be swayed on that though.

Have I got a thyroid problem?

Thyroid glands can become underactive — hypothyroidism — or overactive — hyperthyroidism.

More than 2 per cent of the population suffers from an underactive thyroid and many more have not had the condition diagnosed or have borderline underactivity; and about 2 per cent of people will suffer a hyperactive thyroid at some stage. Both types are ten times more common in women than men and hypothyroidism is more common with age.

Hypothyroidism may cause no symptoms at all. Or it can lead to tiredness, dry skin, hair loss, weight gain, cold intolerance, period problems, a hoarse voice and constipation. Hyperthyroidism causes weight loss, diarrhoea, heat intolerance, tremor and nervousness. Complications include thin bones and an irregular heart rhythm.

An underactive thyroid is easy to treat with thyroxine tablets. Hyperthyroidism may require pills or surgery.

Dr Keith Hopcroft

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