Before there was Michael Pollan and his “intentional eating” MasterClass, before there was “intermittent fasting” and the Wim Hof Method, there was Franz Xaver Mayr, the early-20th-century Austrian physician. His revolutionary Mayr Method was grounded in the belief that the secret to health and beauty starts in the gut. His cult-like following led to the opening of his own clinic, and, eventually, to Lanserhof, a wellness and longevity retreat at whose fourth outpost I presently find myself. Somehow by my own choosing.

Arriving to the remote German island of Sylt, considered by some to be the Teutonic version of the Hamptons , if the Hamptons had fewer beach clubs and more colonics, takes some effort. Which is, of course, the point. Guests must take a four-hour train ride across the H

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