Coming Clean

Model Abby Champion and her boyfriend, actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, head to Germany's remote Frisian Islands to experience Lanserhof's brand of ascetic wellness. Vassi Chamberlain and her (reluctant) husband follow their lead.

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To paraphrase Jane Austen, one the greatest observers of the British male, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the species would rather subsist on their own entrails before tending to matters of self-care. I should know; I have been married to one such shining example for more than 25 years. The manchild I live with in otherwise conjugal bliss has never, to my knowledge, set foot in a gym or made a doctor’s appointment unbidden; we haven’t eaten the same food for years because gastronomy to him equals something lavishly fried and intensely caloric. In fact, the only thing he is rigorously fastidious about is stockpiling (in case of possible Armageddon) his beloved Kronenbourg beers and peanut M&M’s, both of which he consumes daily. So when I breezily suggest we visit the newly opened Lanserhof in Sylt, an island off the northern coast of Germany, for a little “couples overhaul,” I get a comically withering look.

Lanserhof isn’t some kind of gratuitously strict and old-fashioned spa for indulgent narcissists, I assure him, going into sales overdrive. Its newest destination, I continue, adheres to the concept that originated more than three decades ago at Lans, the Tyrolean alpine resort in Austria (an avid skier, he is noticeably intrigued): that the gut, once cleansed and detoxified, has an astounding ability to kick-start the body's path back to health and vitality. (I've lost him.)