I’m wandering around the gorgeous town of Merano, following the bubbling Passer River as families stop along it for ice creams and couples take selfies on bridges as they go for a sunny stroll. 

But all I can think about is Loacker, the famous wafer biscuit brand from South Tyrol.

Having been idly Googling information about the town, I discover Loacker is a local thing, and while I tell myself I’ve come out of my cocoon at Palace Merano to enjoy a brisk walk, to get plenty of fresh air in my lungs, and to top up the vitamin D – all of that’s a lie. I’m actually going in search of snacks.

I find what looks to be something of a miniature Wholefoods in the town; delicious looking organic fruits and veg; local snacks and wine; a deli counter piled high with cheese and cold meats.

And then I spot it: a whole section devoted to Alfons Loacker’s 100-year-old brand, started in Bolzano, 30km away. I’ve never been so happy to see these friendly little packets of cream-filled wafers.

Not that I was starving, mind you. But for someone who has at least one packet of crisps and a chocolate bar or biscuit every day (I know, it’s bad); I was going through ‘cold turkey’.

Some people get headaches when they come off coffee on a detox – I get anxious about lack of access to sweet treats and Walkers.

I buy two packets of Loackers (and some apples and bananas to offset the guilt) and head back to the hotel.

Don’t get me wrong – the individualised three-meals-a-day offering at Palace Merano is enough to meet guests’ essential dietary needs, but they don’t keep me satiated. That’s kind of the point I guess.

Making you realise you don’t need all that rubbish while offering a reminder of how much better for you it is to have meals cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients, and minimal meat, dairy, salt and sugar, as orchestrated by chef Gunther Pirhofer’s Revital Biolight Diet and Revital Detox Diet menus.

A classic dinner menu example for me was cooked vegetables with basil pesto and sunflower seeds; yellow gazpacho, balsamic vinegar and spring onions; soaked tofu and wok-fired wild broccoli with lentil dip; and a pot of relaxing herbal tea. Not a crisp in sight.

Talk of the town 

Merano is a historic spa town, long associated with wellness and a retreat for Habsburg royalty and European aristocracy.

Its Mediterranean-tinged gardens, 19th-century architecture and compact historic centre just down the road from the hotel are a nice side benefit.

Palace Merano is the town’s “grande dame”, where over the years, guests at the 99-room hotel have included the likes of Franz Kafka and Pavarotti.

These days, the entire focus is on wellness, with medical-grade and diagnostic-led longevity programmes wrapped within this traditionally designed five-star hotel.

There is constant investment however: a renovated Revital Spa was unveiled earlier this year, including redesigned massage cabins, fitness room, common areas, hairdressing salon and boutique. Up on the Revital floor, there is 1500m² of treatment space, licensed by the health authority for medical procedures, and endless rooms with big analytical machines in.

There’s also now a new set of spaces on the ground floor, such as a yoga studio looking out over the gardens. An outdoor pool also awaits in warmer months.

The team of medical specialists is coordinated by health director, Dr Massimiliano Mayrhofer and an army of nutritionists, energy specialists, masseurs and the wider Palace Merano staff who all understand these well-heeled guests (the majority of which seem to be Italian and well north of 50 years old) are here for their health.

For me, the confessional outpouring around my terrible lifestyle feels like a helpful release, a reset. 

All my dirty health laundry is aired over the course of the five-night stay; how I function at a ridiculously high level of stress most of the time; my inability to get a full night’s sleep; my lack of real exercise; my ridiculous cheese intake; the aforementioned addiction to crisps and sweets; my white wine consumption… on and on it goes.

Shock to the system

Given how all of that is about to stop for a few days, it’s no surprise my body goes into a bit of shock, and (apologies for graphic content), I am actually sick on day one.

It’d barely been 18 hours since I’d consumed any of those devil items, but somehow my body is reacting to what it knows is the detox ahead.

Upon hearing this at my first consultation, the doctor gives me some mild anti-nausea tablets and also prescribes an afternoon nap to recover, instead of the schedule of two or three other appointments I was facing (you carry around a very detailed folder of guidance, treatments and schedules, updated with all test results).

I take this ‘medical advice’ very seriously and enjoy a snooze in my comfortable suite. By day two – I am back on track and ready for what the experience has to offer me.

All programmes at Palace Merano are built around The Revital Method, 20 years in the making and combining the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with the most advanced techniques and practices of Western medicine.

The philosophy of TCM is that every living thing has essential, constant qualities known as “elements”, of which there are five: wood (green/hepatic element), fire (red/cardiac element), earth (yellow/pancreatic element), metal (white/pulmonary element) and water (grey/surrenal element). 

Each of the five elements has different physical morphologies associated with character traits, and a TCM specialist helps determine guests’ prevailing element to help tailor treatments. The idea is to expel excess toxins and reactivate energy associated with whatever the principal element is determined to be.

I am fascinated to see how the ‘east meets west’ philosophy works, and I’m not surprised to learn my bio-energetic levels are struggling.

Turns out, I’m a bit of a mess internally, with graphs of my organ functions looking wildly off balance and my liver and kidneys suffering the most.

The Detox and Longevity programme I was fortunate enough to follow includes a nutritionist session; the bio-energy check-up, followed by four tailored bio-energy treatments (electronic acupuncture) and an end consultation; a densitometry body scan (that was a scary image I don’t want to see often); daily energy massages (usually cupping for me); plus daily hydro-energy treatments.

Let’s just take a moment to focus on these. Being a prudish old British woman, it took a while to get used to. You have to be comfortable with a lot of nudity in front of a therapist who firstly helps you get into a huge warm bath for the stage one hydro-aromatherapy session.

Then she helps you out after 20 minutes and shuffles you over to a warm floating bed where she covers you in mud, wraps you up and leaves you for another 20 minutes.

You’re then shuffled (still wrapped up) again to the shower section where you are blasted with a high-pressure hose in the final hydro-jet session. Not one for the faint-hearted – but I soon got used to it, and this process of toxin elimination also helped towards my loss of three kilos during the stay.

In a world of weight-loss jabs that can see people quite easily drop much more than that with little effort other than injecting themselves, you may wonder whether such in-depth programmes that focus on weight loss will start to fade.

But this is about more than that. It’s about taking time to analyse why you have the weight in the first place, its causes and corrections, looking for long-term lifestyle changes and solutions, and understanding that our bodies really are temples.

As resilient as they are, we need to give these piles of tissue, blood, water and fat a break sometimes. After all my sessions – coupled with the slowing of life’s pace and healthier food – my pre-departure assessment genuinely showed things already looking much better.

But that was then: I visited the hotel in April, and I’m ashamed to say, much has slipped since. Yes, mainly in the realms of crisps and wine.

But as I write this, I am re-looking at the six-page personalised dietary suggestions I was given by the nutritionist to bring home… Now I feel freshly inspired – so watch this (Loacker-free) space.