In a piece in Insider, Gabby Ladsverk looks at the health club where celebrities eat 600 calories a day and get belly rubs to speed up their metabolism.
The piece in Insider focuses on celebrities Rebel Wilson and Karlie Kloss. Rebel Wilson joined the exclusive Austrian wellness centre, Viva Mayr, in 2020 as part of her “Year of Health”, and it has helped her in 2020 with a stay at an exclusive European wellness center, and has since helped her to lose weight and improve her overall health.
Viva Mayr is a spa franchise and has a location in London. It is famous for its one- to two-week cleanses, which cost between $2,600 and over $8,000, excluding hotel accommodation, priced at $180 to $1,350 a night. Clearly with prices such as these, the spa caters to people of a very high income. Consequently, it attracts a lot of celebrities, including Suki Waterhouse, and Elizabeth Hurley as well as the aforementioned Rebel Wilson and Karlie Kloss.
Luxury spa it may be but the spa is renowned for its asceticism, rigor and restrictive diets, added to a spartan digestive regimen and, shall we say, eccentric wellness therapies.
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Daily Belly Massages are at the Heart of Viva Mayr’s Approach to Wellness
Viva Mayr favours intermittent fasting, which essentially is where one restricts the number of hours one eats in order to enter a fasted state and improve metabolism, lose weight faster, and even boost one’s mood. The spa starts its guests on the journey of intermittent fasting by encouraging them to skip dinner. Guests are also urged to stay away from raw foods, and eliminate alcohol, caffeine and beans from their diet, before coming to the spa.
The most curious of the spa’s treatments are 15min massages of the guests’ stomachs, three to five times a week. This is a mandatory treatment and costs $100 for the week. Viva Mayr insists that these massages stimulate digestion by eliminating blockages in the lymphatic system and abdomen.
Guests are also forbidden from drinking water with their meals, in the belief that drinking water with meals dilutes digestive enzymes. Guests are also prohibited from eating raw food after 4 p.m. As Insider notes, dieticians have disputed the evidence behind these strategies.
Diets are Restrictive, with Guests Eating Just 300 to 600 calories a day, and chewing each bite 40 times
Apart from regular belly massages, Viva Mayr also practices a very strange diet. Each guest has a custom-made dietary plan but those dietary plans all share the same features: the diet sets a limit of 600 calories per day and often, this is close to 300 calories.
It’s important to note that dietary guidelines seldom recommend eating so few calories a day, with such diets usually being prescribed for people suffering from diabetes and other such conditions.
It is not surprising then that many guests experience difficulties with this restrictive diet. Added to this, guests are encouraged to chew each bite at least 40 times. One suggests that rather than partaking in the goings on at places like these, one pays a visit to the local medspa for quality spa treatment.