Trying out a new detox at Le Spa

Although I never usually eat this early, I’m hit with an urge to have tea and toast before I set off. Ridiculous. I fight off the impulse to stock up on solids, knowing it’s the last I’ll see of real food for the next three days.

Arriving at the spa I meet Cliff Lonner, a gently spoken American from Chicago, via Thailand, who is leading the courses. I’m introduced to the other women on the course - Patsy Palmer (yes, the Patsy Palmer, Bianca from EastEnders), along with her co-star Sid Owen’s girlfriend, actress Polly Parsons.

Sid, who plays Ricky, pops his head in too but he’s not doing the fast as he’s just finished a stringent one in Samui in Thailand.

It’s all beginning to feel a little surreal.

Patsy and Polly are old hands already, having completed day one of the three-day detox I’ve opted for.

I join them for our first special drink of the day - a mix of fruit juice, fibre and clay - which you have to drink down quickly before it solidifies. It’s designed to bind to matter in your colon and help drag it out. I don’t like to think about this too much.

A quick chat with Cliff reveals that he was once an overweight (around the 22 stone mark), stressed-out regional director of an audio visual company.

When he hit 40 at the turn of the century he decided to take a new path. He now reads Tarot cards, practices reiki, teaches yoga and advises on fasts in three spas in Thailand. “Now my income is limited but my health is so much better - I am richer than ever,” said Cliff, who lost around eight stone along the way.

“There’s a saying in India, ‘health is wealth’, and that’s what I have.”

He’s been at Le Spa since November, getting the programme up and running and advising staff on how to continue it once he returns to Thailand.

“It’s a less intense regime than the ones in Thailand but still very effective,” he said.

“It needed to be tailored to the British environment and the working person. The focus is to kick-start your health regime.”

In Thailand the detox usually involves a full 28-day programme, ending with a seven-day fast.

Here, my programme for day one runs: 9am Detox drink (the clay mix, as previously mentioned)
10.30am Three herbal supplement tablets and three Chompers tablets. The Chompers are designed to soften the matter in your colon.
11am Carrot and apple juice, to keep sugar levels up.
Noon Detox drink.
1.30pm Three herbal supplement tablets and three Chompers. Followed by vegetable broth.
3pm Detox drink followed by self administered colonic (see panel).
5pm Liver flush drink - a mix of fruit juice, oil, garlic, ginger and cayenne pepper.
7pm Vegetable broth.
Before bedtime A “flora grow” capsule to replace the good bacteria you’re flushing out of your system.

Between “meals” I use the gym, pool, steam room and sauna and read or take naps in my room, and the day passes quickly. I don’t feel hungry at all.

Patsy has headaches on her first and second evenings, which she puts down to caffeine withdrawal, but I manage to escape those. I think it’s because I don’t drink a huge amount of tea or coffee and I’d had a vegetarian diet for 10 days or so before I started.

I do have a momentary glance at the biscuits which have been left in my room but manage to ignore them and make do with a ginger and lemon drink. I’ve never liked bourbons anyway!

I wake up at 4am and fleetingly wonder if hunger pangs have woken me up. Nope, I still feel full (must be the clay) and I fall back to sleep.

Day two passes pretty much in the same way as day one. I wave goodbye to Patsy, who enjoyed the experience and plans to restart a wheat-free diet, and Polly, who is looking forward to a nice cuppa and biscuit (“except now I’ll stop at two rather than eating the packet!”).

Boyfriend Sid is a fan of detox regimes and it was through talking to him at Spa Samui in Thailand that Max Banner, partner of Linda Lloyd, the owner of Le Spa, thought it would be a good idea to run them in this country.

“Sid said it was a shame there was nowhere here. It’s not a new concept but nobody else in the UK is doing it as far as I know,” said Max.

It’s already proving popular. Members of staff have tried it out, including general manager Sue Wardrop, who carried on working throughout her five day programme.

“It was actually easier on the days I was working because there were none of the temptations you get at home. There was one evening I felt tired but apart from that I felt good and I never felt hungry,” said Sue.

I can vouch for not feeling hungry too and staying over at Le Spa meant the regime was easy to follow, although you don’t have to be resident to do it.

It was back to the real world on day three and I was a little nervous. But I started the day with a swim, went to work between my morning supplements and my afternoon colonic, skipped the broths and still had energy enough to cook my son’s dinner - and enough willpower not to eat any of it.

In general, I’m still sceptical of detox products which promise to rid your body of all “poisons” but I loved the strict three-day regime and, as long as you’re taking the right supplements, it surely can’t hurt to give your body a break.

I certainly felt great afterwards. And I felt even better the next morning when I stepped on the scales and discovered I’d lost five pounds.

While some of that weight loss can be put down to the colonics, cleaning out my system meant I wasn’t keen to start shovelling down fatty and sugary foods in a hurry and, two weeks later, I’ve kept it off and lost another couple of pounds.

Never mind detoxing - it’s a great way to kick-start the diet.

The Bum Deal
Without going into the gory details, our daily, self-administered enemas involved rubber tubing, a 14-litre mixture of warm coffee and vinegar, a complete loss of dignity, a certain amount of embarrassment and Frank Sinatra.

However, you have your own little cubicle, you can go at your own pace and it doesn’t hurt.

If you can keep your sense of the ridiculous, it actually is extremely funny to be stark naked, with a tube up your bum, listening to Ol’ Blue Eyes croon Young At Heart (they pipe in music to mask the, um, sounds) . . . especially when you know Patsy Palmer is doing exactly the same thing next door!

n For details of the detox programme at Le Spa, which starts at £50 a day, contact Le Spa (www.lespa. com) on 01285 653840.