The FX Mayr Clinic is one of the world’s best known clinics for weight loss. Medical director, Dr Stephan Domenig, shares 7 alkaline diet secrets used by the Mayr Clinic that can help you lose weight
Weight loss – it’s one of the most spoken about topics – like ever. From diets to treatments, there are so many things people can do to try and lose weight. But for some ‘trying’ to lose weight can instead become a losing battle.
The Mayr Clinic is a health centre that specialises in a form of extreme detoxification, known as ‘the Mayr cure’. The clinic is a beautiful yet functional-looking alpine lodge, that overlooks Lake Altaussee in Austria.
Here, patients will consume around 600 calories a day – relaxing in Epsom salt baths drinking a whole load of water and eating lactose-free goat’s cheese (who would have thought that?).
The programme is not just well known but also successful, with celeb fans including, politician Micheal Gove, model Karlie Kloss, members of the rolling stones and many more. Oh, and it’s generally booked up all year – it’s THAT popular.
The Mayr Clinic, essentially offers patients a chance to change their lives and leave feeling revived, reborn, re-educated and ultimately thinner.
For more than one hundred years, the teachings laid down by the great Dr Franz Xaver Mayr (the founder of the Mayr Cure) have formed the basis of one of the most effective diet and health regimes in Europe.
In that time, Mayr doctors have successfully treated tens of thousands of patients. Mayr, who was born in Austria in 1875, pioneered a radical new approach to wellness.
One of Mayr’s pupils, Dr Eric Rauch, opened the first Mayr health clinic in Dellach, on Lake Wörthersee in Austria. This clinic is now known as The Original F.X. Mayr Health Centre and is much admired, much copied and is a source of help to many many people.
So how can we follow the alkaline diet, what are the secrets? Lets find out…
7 Alkaline diet secrets from the world’s most famous weight loss clinic
Dr Stephan Domenig is the Medical Director at the FX Mayr Health Centre – here he explains some of the clinic’s eating secrets
#1 Alkalise your diet
The balance on your plate should be two-thirds alkaline-forming foods and one-third acid-forming. A majority of our staple foods are acid-forming, including: meat, white bread, refined oils, aged dairy products, caffeine and alcohol.
Alkaline-forming foods include vegetables such as dark leafy greens, potatoes, beetroot; ripe fruits – bananas, watermelons, mangoes; grains; high-quality cold-pressed ‘virgin’ vegetable, nut and seed oils; and herbal teas.
#2 Source your food thoughtfully
Vegetables especially are influenced nutritionally by the environment in which they are grown, and the distance they travel to reach your plate. Search for fresh, local, seasonal products. Depending on where you live, strawberries may be ripe in July, plums in September, apples in October, beetroot in November. Food at its ripest contains the maximum nutrients.
#3 Take your time when eating
The first law of eating well is to take your time. Set aside at least 30 minutes to sit comfortably, in a relaxed environment and dedicate the time to enjoying your meal. This will help you to relearn the pleasures of eating properly.
Don’t eat when you are stressed or angry, as that could cause you to hurry. Once you have finished your meal, stay seated for a few minutes. You should feel calm, satisfied and nourished. Make every mouthful count and enjoy eating; your body and your mind will thank you for taking extra time.
#4 Reduce the amount of food you eat
Make the most important meals of the day, breakfast and lunch. When you wake in the morning your body is at its most digestively able and it can cope with a wide range of different foods more easily.
But in the evening, your body, like your mind, is slowing down, so you need to eat smaller portions of more easily digested foods. Evening meals should be consumed early, preferably before six in the evening.
#5 Chew your food well
Insufficient chewing impairs nutrient absorption and causes inefficient digestion so ensure your food is fully masticated before you swallow. Around thirty times per mouthful is the minimum.
While chewing, take your time to appreciate and enjoy all the textures and flavours flooding your senses. Put down your cutlery between bites; your body digests different foods in different parts of the digestive tract and needs time to carry out this process.
#6 Hydrate well – but not while you eat
Water is invaluable to our body’s health and wellbeing; you should be drinking water whenever you can. However, washing down your food with liquid will dilute your saliva and deprive your stomach of an important stimulus so we do not encourage drinking during mealtimes.
#7: Find Your rhythm
Mindful eating is about more than just food. Enjoying every bite of every meal is important, as is making sure the food you are eating is mindfully sourced and nutritionally beneficial. It is also important to ensure you are exercising daily to better support your digestive system.
Your home environment also has a huge impact on your health and well being, so enrich your surroundings. At the Clinic we are proponents of “intuitive eating”.
Find your own rhythm: don’t squeeze meals in between other activities, adjust your routine to suit you, and listen to your body’s natural instincts. Your body will thank you.
Dr Stephan Domenig is the Medical Director at the FX Mayr Health Centre. He is fully trained in Mayr theory with certifications in general and emergency medicine, orthomolecular medicine, applies kinesiology, chronobiology and chiropractics.
Dr Domenig’s new book The Alkaline Cure is available to buy on Amazon.
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