A Fasting Week Day by Day: The Tannerhof Course

The essentials

• The fasting week begins before arrival with relief at home and does not end on the last fasting day but with rebuilding back to solid food and stimulants.
• The length of stay is booked before arrival; the medical intake consultation follows on the first fasting day and shapes the concrete course together with you.
• The transition days at the start are the most demanding; afterwards a quiet, carrying rhythm often sets in.
• The breaking of the fast still counts as fasting time and begins at Tannerhof with the apple — raw or steamed, chewed very consciously.
• For first-time fasters, a good week is a fine size: about seven fasting days plus two to three rebuilding days.

The fasting week at a glance

A fasting week is not a single act of abstention but an arc with beginning, middle and transition. Buchinger therapeutic fasting is the conscious, time-limited abstention from solid food and stimulants — not a zero-calorie diet and not a primary weight-loss method, but a therapeutic method, a cleansing on several levels, and a meeting with oneself. At Naturhotel Tannerhof, fasting belongs to the DNA of the house, introduced by Johannes von Mengershausen and medically guided across three generations of physicians.

More at Body Detox and on the Buchinger Method page.

Before arrival: the relief days

A fasting week does not begin with the first cup of fasting tea but already at home. The doctors at Tannerhof recommend one or more relief days before arrival. Tried variants: a fruit, potato, vegetable or raw-food day.

On the arrival day itself there is a light vegetable plate in the evening. The length of stay is already booked at this point; the concrete day plan is shaped the next day together with the medical team.

The first fasting day: intake consultation and fasting start

At the start is the intake consultation — and only after that, if suitable, the actual fasting start. The intake consultation is holistic: history-taking, physical examination including bioimpedance analysis, medication review — plus the questions that carry the fast: why you want to fast, what goals you have at Tannerhof, what fasting experience you bring.

Only then does the fasting start begin, classically with Glauber's salt — a mild salt that empties the gut at the start. It is optional; the handling is decided individually in the intake consultation.

The transition days: the body switches over

The first two to three fasting days are the most demanding. Weakness, shakiness, nausea or headache are possible. They belong to the process; the medical team accompanies this phase. The metabolic switch — from glucose to fatty acids and ketone bodies — sets in roughly 24 to 72 hours after the start (de Cabo and Mattson, NEJM, 2019).

The fasting days: a rhythm of their own

Over the day, fasting guests take in around three litres of fluid: fasting tea, water, lemon and ginger water.

• Morning: a herbal tea.
• Midday: a mild vegetable broth in the Fasterstube.
• Evening: a freshly pressed fruit or vegetable juice, optionally with buttermilk or Sojade.

If needed, further protein and an alkaline preparation are added; a spoon of honey or an espresso may bridge a low. People who fast need a different beat than someone enjoying the in-house 3/4-Pension.

We recommend five fasting days and upward; the longer one fasts, the deeper the effects. The PLOS One study by Wilhelmi de Toledo and colleagues (2019) documented in 1,422 fasters across four to twenty-one days an increase in well-being with very good safety.

Movement and treatments during the fasting days

Movement stays part of fasting, only at a different pace. Recommended: moderate aerobic and moderate strength training, plus yoga, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Theraband training or a walk. Summit tours and running are possible, only slower — the body nourishes itself from within.

Accompanying treatments: medical follow-up, IHHT altitude training depending on the programme, Kneipp alternating affusion, hay flower and aromatic wraps, mud and warm packs, magnesium-rich detoxifying baths, fasting massage, detoxifying massage with king's oil or acidosis massage, lymphatic drainage, foot reflexology, breathing therapy and sauna. For the mental side: psychotherapeutic coaching, nature coaching and art therapy.

Breaking the fast: the holy apple

Breaking the fast still counts as fasting time. At midday it begins with a small cup of faster's broth. Then follows the holy apple, raw or steamed, each bite chewed thirty to forty times. This very conscious chewing gently prepares digestion for what it has not done for days.

In the evening of breaking the fast there is a vegetable soup — this time with vegetable pieces. So the body makes the first step back to solid food.

The rebuilding days: back into everyday life

Rebuilding extends over roughly one third of the fasting time. At the centre: what is good for the microbiome — easily digestible vegetables, fermented foods, fibre.

• Breakfast: yogurt with linseed and soaked prunes.
• Midday: light vegetables, salads, a vegetable soufflé or stuffed zucchini, later also fish.
• Evening: the small Schlanke Tanne vegetable plate with rotating protein.

At the end is the closing medical consultation. If a sustainable change is wanted, Schlanke Tanne Low Carb can follow.

Discovering therapeutic fasting at Tannerhof

More at Body Detox and on the methodology at Buchinger therapeutic fasting.