Finding a Fasting Hotel: What Medically Guided Therapeutic Fasting Looks Like

The essentials

• Medically guided fasting lives on experience: at Tannerhof, doctors have accompanied fasting for over 70 years, as fasting experts through the in-house private practice.
• The course is shaped individually — the intake consultation on the first fasting day tailors rhythm and treatments to the individual.
• The treatment spectrum is deliberately broad, from bioimpedance analysis and IHHT altitude training to wraps, baths, massages and breathing therapy.
• Setting and medical guidance work together: fasting in the mountain rhythm of Bayrischzell, between alpine meadow, mountain stream and a view of the Wendelstein.
• Fasting experience is anchored across all departments; fasters have their own dining room (Fasterstube) and a quiet bridge into everyday life through Schlanke Tanne Low Carb.

What medically guided therapeutic fasting means

Buchinger therapeutic fasting is the conscious, time-limited abstention from solid food and stimulants. Instead of meals, herbal tea, water, mild vegetable broth and fresh juices carry the day. Fasting is more than a diet — a therapeutic method, a cleansing on several levels, and a meeting with oneself. Weight loss can be a side effect; the core lies elsewhere.

Medical guidance is not strictly required for every fast, but it is useful. At Naturhotel Tannerhof it belongs to the fast from the first hour to the last. People looking for a medically guided fasting programme find the right framework in Body Detox.

Clinical experience as the load-bearing ground

The first dimension is clinical experience. The German Medical Society for Therapeutic Fasting and Nutrition (ÄGHE) distinguishes between preventive fasting and therapeutic fasting aimed at clearly defined conditions. The Guidelines on Fasting Therapy point to medical responsibility: indication, accompaniment and medication management need expertise. Since 1996 doctors have been able to qualify as fasting physicians through the society's curriculum.

At Tannerhof this experience has grown over generations. Therapeutic fasting was introduced by Johannes von Mengershausen and is today accompanied across three generations of physicians — in total for over 70 years.

A course shaped individually

The second dimension is the individual course. Before arrival the doctors recommend one or more relief days at home, for example a fruit, potato, vegetable or raw-food day. On arrival day, a light vegetable plate marks the evening. The length of stay is booked at this point.

The core is the medical intake consultation on the first fasting day. It is holistic: history-taking, physical examination including bioimpedance analysis to measure body composition, and a medication review. Plus the questions that meet the person — why fast, what other goals matter beside the fast, what is happening in life, what previous fasting experience exists. Within the booked stay, duration, accompanying treatments and rebuilding rhythm can be adjusted from this conversation onward.

How long the fasting takes is a recommendation, not a rule. Five fasting days and upward give the metabolic shift enough room; a week with rebuilding is a good size for first-time fasters — about seven fasting days plus two to three rebuilding days. The longer the fast, the deeper the effects.

The full treatment spectrum

The third dimension is the breadth of what accompanies the fast. At Tannerhof the spectrum is deliberately wide, because fasting is more than an eating change for a few days. An overview of the full treatment offering is available on the dedicated page.

Medically, the intake consultation, optional follow-up and closing consultation form a quiet arc. Diagnostic and medical offerings include bioimpedance analysis, IHHT altitude training (programme-dependent) and, where medically appropriate, ozone autohaemotherapy. Alongside come a wide field of relaxing treatments tuned to fasting:

• Wraps and applications: hay flower wraps to support liver function, aromatic wraps, mud and warm packs.
• Baths and affusions: Kneipp alternating affusion, magnesium-rich detoxifying baths, aromatic baths.
• Massages: fasting massage, detoxifying massage with king's oil or acidosis massage, lymphatic drainage, foot reflexology.
• Breath and movement: breathing therapy, yoga, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Theraband training and sauna.

Setting and mountain rhythm

The fourth dimension is the place. Setting and medical guidance are equals — they amplify each other. Fasting in a landscape that touches you is markedly more intensive than fasting without one. Tannerhof sits in Bayrischzell, about 75 kilometres southeast of Munich, in the upper Leitzach valley, with a view across the valley and toward the Wendelstein.

The mountain rhythm belongs to the method: alpine meadow, mountain stream, clear mountain air, the view between the Wendelstein and the Sonnwendjoch. The Orangerie as an afternoon retreat under plants, with samovar tea, belongs to it as much as the walk in a tempo that fits the fast.

A fasting-experienced team across the house

The fifth dimension is the team. Fasting experience is anchored across all departments at Tannerhof. Reception, restaurant, treatment providers and therapists are familiar with the fasting flow, so a fasting guest meets people who understand what a fasting week means.

Visible too in the Fasterstube, the dedicated dining room for fasting guests. People who fast need a different beat than people enjoying multi-course meals — the Fasterstube gives that other beat a place.

What happens in the body

The Guidelines on Fasting Therapy and accompanying studies, accessible through the ÄGHE, describe fasting as a medically classifiable method. The body works on two levels at the same time, often conflated.

The first level is fat burning. As fast-access carbohydrate stores deplete, metabolism shifts increasingly to fatty acids and ketone bodies. The second level is autophagy — the body's own cellular recycling, recognised with the 2016 Nobel Prize for Yoshinori Ohsumi.

A large observational study by Wilhelmi de Toledo and colleagues (PLOS One, 2019) followed 1,422 fasters through periods of four to twenty-one days. Buchinger fasting in this setting proved safe and well tolerated, with adverse events well below one percent, while physical and emotional wellbeing rose significantly during the fast.

The bridge into everyday life

The rebuilding phase is not an afterthought. The breaking of the fast still counts as fasting time and begins at Tannerhof with the apple, raw or steamed, with very conscious chewing. After that comes rebuilding over roughly one third of the fasting time — a gradual return to solid food with easily digestible vegetables, fermented foods and fibre.

In the closing consultation, the doctors evaluate what has shifted and discuss the diet afterward. If a lasting change is wanted, the in-house Schlanke Tanne Low Carb can follow on. It is not a Buchinger substitute but a way of carrying the fasting experience into everyday life. More at Therapeutic Fasting and Schlanke Tanne.

Discovering therapeutic fasting at Tannerhof

Naturhotel Tannerhof has been carrying Buchinger fasting for over 70 years: medically guided, fasting-experienced across departments, and embedded in Bayrischzell between alpine meadow, mountain stream and the view toward the Wendelstein. See the framework at Body Detox and across the Health Programmes.