Boutique Week Luxury Bootcamp, Crete

Before I'd even packed I had decided that this was a ridiculous idea, tailored for idiots with far bigger wallets than intellects. Who in their right mind would pay more than two grand to be exercised to exhaustion and dieted to starvation by Joe Fournier, a former England basketball player and "trainer to the stars"?

The venue, the Blue Palace Hotel, is regularly voted one of the world's best spas, and the Bootcamp programme includes twice- or even thrice-daily treatments. It is aimed, as the brochure puts it, at "those who want to get their arses kicked and then get them massaged too".

Ever the masochist, I was more interested in the former than the latter. I used to be quite fit, but the combination of starting a new job and falling in love had done for my exercise regime, and I was keen to get back into it. As for massages, I'm a bit funny about strangers touching me so had thus far avoided all beauty treatments beyond my bi-annual haircuts.

Nevertheless, by midday on day one, I am in need of pampering. Having risen at 6.30am, I have completed a coastal run and 70 minutes of circuit training. Grumpy about the diet (a credit card-sized scrap of bread at breakfast is all the carbs I am allowed, and no tea to wash it down), I pick a fight with Fournier about the colour of the boxing gloves we wear during the circuits - pink offends my feminist sensibilities.

My first massage is with hot olive oil followed by a sugar scrub. It is a revelation, leaving my skin as soft as cashmere. The only thing that stops me falling asleep during the treatment is trying to design ingenious ways of siphoning off some of the oil to tart up the undressed salad we'll be having for lunch.

There follows two hours of "leisure time", which I mostly use to get over the shock of being stranded alone in Bootcamp and tell myself it is going to be OK. Then I have my first ever facial - an exfoliation session with olive stones - immediately followed by my second ever facial, which involves an aromatherapy massage.

The fellow campers, it turns out, are not idiots. They are a lovely (if wealthy) bunch of women. One is a frighteningly fit management consultant in her late 30s, while another is a 50-something mother of three whose husband recently died and who wants to meet new people and shake up her exercise regime.

Each evening our tailor-made itineraries for the next day are slipped under our bedroom doors. As the week wears on I come to look forward to these sheets of paper, and especially the bits marked "surprise!". Treats are way better when you don't know what they're going to be, thus a few pieces of fruit and a lift home after a dawn hike elicit the kind of squealing you would expect to hear at a boy-band concert.

I end up loving Bootcamp; the mini-triathlon we do early one morning (including a swim in the sea), the day we learn to water-ski (great for the thighs), our treacherous attempt to canoe to the island opposite the hotel, the snorkelling, the fact I get faster at running in just seven days. The only exercise I don't enjoy is the strength training and postural alignment, due to being weak and rickety. But even those improve markedly over the week, thanks to Dan Burt, a sports injury specialist. He gets me doing self-massage on my tight quads using a foam roller, and is so patient and wise that we all fall in love with him a little.

The meals are the one disappointment. Tasked with sticking to Joe's list of dos and don'ts - low carbs, no added fat, salt or sugar - the chefs mostly serve up over-grilled meat and boiled vegetables. There is strictly no alcohol: in Joe's opinion, anyone who regularly drinks half a bottle of wine is an alcoholic.

Weight loss isn't my goal, but I won't complain about the 4lbs I do lose over the week. One fellow camper loses 8lbs. When I get home I start running again, regularly use my massage roller and eat beautifully. I even swap proper tea for hot water and lemon. My only failure is not cutting out the booze. But then I go to Germany on assignment, and after surviving on beer and sausages for six weeks, I have undone all my good work. But it's a new year now, and I am getting back on track, even planning some flexibility sessions with Burt. And in the unlikely event that I find two grand lying in the street before May, I will be booking in for the next camp.
Helen Pidd

· From £2,195 for seven nights' full-board accommodation and flights. Book through Elegant Resorts, elegantresorts.co.uk

Juicemaster Ultimate Retreat, Turkey

Group activity holidays had never appealed to me but following a summer of rock festival- related excess, a week of enforced juice- fasting seemed like a good idea.

I am woken early the first morning by a cockerel and some yammering ducks. I peer out to see rabbits and peacocks hopping about the garden. Bordubet, the boutique spa resort we're staying in, is set among pine forests on Turkey's south coast. We're completely cut off from the world.

I look at my timetable to see where I'm supposed to be. It feels like my first day at a new school. Jason Vale, aka the "Juicemaster", immediately gets my heckles up by mentioning the daily motivational talks he'll be giving on the joys of juicing, and on cigarette, alcohol and food addiction.

I quickly learn it's best if I keep my horror of listening to motivational speakers, and catchphrases such as "keep it juicy!", to myself. It turns out that many of my fellow juicers are repeat customers, and most have read Vale's books. One friend I make has lost 6st and needs a motivational nudge to shift a few more pounds. Another, one of the few men, is trying to kick a cocaine habit.

For the first three days we're fed fruit in the morning, and then only juices, which are really giant smoothies packed with banana and avocado, so I don't feel hungry at all. My insides don't feel too happy, though, about the lack of solid food and my teeth furr up. Almost immediately I develop a caffeine- withdrawal headache which stays for three days. From day four, we get a healthy evening buffet with fish and rice.

Everything is optional so I skip the pre-dawn meditation followed by the shouty game of "netfootball" - a cross between netball and football and a Vale invention - and amble down to the waterside for a rebounding (mini-trampoline) session before breakfast. There would usually then be "yoga with Ken". This starts out frustratingly light but, as the week progresses, the practice intensifies and I learn that holding the cobra for unimaginable periods makes you feel high as a kite.

I decide that I should attend Vale's talks, strictly for journalistic purposes. Most of what he says is based on common sense and personal experience. He used to be overweight, a heavy smoker and drinker and have chronic psoriasis. I hadn't come here with the intention of giving anything up for good, although listening to Vale prattle on, my social smoking habit seems increasingly pointless and pathetic.

In the evenings, "inspirational films" are shown. This kind of self-help pap makes me want to vomit so I retire to my room. I'm usually sleepy by about 9pm anyway.

On the final day Vale leads us through a visualisation during which we visit ourselves at various points in the future to see what would happen if we do and if we don't continue being healthy and motivated back home. I feel bizarrely light and strong with the sun warming my skin. Afterwards, everyone has to hug. I'm sorry, but I hate this.

I leave feeling calm, strong and marginally leaner (some fellow juicers lose around half a stone). And I haven't smoked since.
Amy Fleming

· A week-long Ultimate Retreat costs £1,350 (all-inclusive except for flights).
juicemaster.com

Ayurvedic Natural Health Centre, Goa

I arrive to be greeted by a doctor who takes my blood pressure, feels for puffy ankles and arranges a urine test to check for things such as excess sugars or proteins. My first massage is an hour later. Two women knead away simultaneously, pouring vast quantities of scented oil over me until I doze off. After a steam bath, I eat a satisfying dinner of rice, chickpea curry and an array of spicy vegetables I don't recognise. Despite the fact that I have now been up for 32 hours, my body clock is all awry and I hardly sleep.

I am woken at 7am for a blood test followed by yoga under the coconut palms, to the sound of birdsong. I am appalled at how stiff I am. After more massage I see a different doctor who pronounces me full of "gas", and asks hundreds of questions to assess my body composition according to Ayurvedic principles. I am given a diet sheet for optimum health which I can follow at home. Some of the foods that I'm advised to avoid - beans, tomatoes and red meat - I have long suspected upset my stomach. There is also ominous talk of "purgation" by enema.

By day three I'm so bloated I almost welcome the enema, which is not as dramatic or uncomfortable as I feared although I was in the loo on and off until midnight. The next day I have another one. I can't believe there is anything left in me but am amazed to find there is. I'm still not sleeping much but feel energised and cheerful, even without my 6pm fix of Macon Blanc. My stomach is flatter and softer.

On day five I skip a third suggested enema in favour of a trip to the beach. I feel light and empty with a definite spring in my step. I can now chalk up more than 12 hours of various types of massage, and although there is a strange rash behind my knees and a few bruises down my thighs from the lymphatic drainage treatment, my body feels good. My shoulders are freer and I'm stretching further. By day seven my cholesterol has dropped to 2.5 from nearly 4 (UK GPs recommend keeping it below five). I have lost 3lbs and fellow inmates agree my skin is clearer, hair shinier and I look better groomed (eyebrow threading in downtown Calangute costs 40p). My body is now a temple and I fear sullying it with meat or alcohol.

I had expected I would fall on a glass of wine the moment I got home but I keep up the non-drinking for another week. Over the festive season I drank less than I used to. And, apart from a turkey sandwich at Christmas, I have not eaten any meat. I still feel calmer and the weight has stayed off too
Jane Wenham-Jones

· A week's package including all treatments, meals and medicines but excluding flights costs £390.
healthandayurveda.com