Workouts, weight loss and wellbeing: Putting Kathryn Thomas’ bootcamp to the test

As another series of Operation Transformation wraps, Vickie Maye puts Kathryn Thomas’ Pure Results bootcamp to the test.

The kit list was terrifying. Signing up for a bootcamp had been daunting enough but the two-page packing list — divided into essential, recommended and optional items — landing in my inbox left me nauseous.

Three pairs of runners, deep heat, a bag large enough to carry two 1l bottles of water...

A 6am alarm call on a freezing January morning (with orange weather warnings), and a two and a half hour drive from Cork to Johnstown Estate, Meath, and I was there, shaking Jen’s hand. Pure Results was the brainchild of Kathryn Thomas, and husband and wife team Niall and Jen (also from Cork) run many of the weekend events.

My Cork commute meant I was late, so I’d missed the introductions. But Jen was beaming, radiating warmth.

This would be OK, I started to tell myself. There’d be no screaming sergeant majors, it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t as fit as all the others.

I was led out to the football pitch at the tail-end of a team building exercise.

Sixteen women — my human contact for the next 48 hours — arms and elbows linked, were trying to disentangle themselves from a human knot. The nausea surged again.

Could I really do this? Boxing is next Jen told me, still smiling. Another wave of nausea. I avoided boxercise, and any other class that sounded any way intimidating, in the gym. A pump or a spin class, no problem. Maybe even a bit of HIIT.

But boxing?

And then the class began. The instructions were clear, the instructors motivating, and the other women were warm, encouraging, fun.

There was pain, but there was laughter too.

I was loving this.

We retreated to Pure Results HQ, a cosy cabin at the rear of the stunning hotel, right beside the holiday lodges where bootcampers would be based for the next two nights. It would be our little oasis, a place where there were no dinners to cook, no children to answer to, no decisions to be made. All we had to do was turn up each morning, and follow the schedule — exercise when we were told to, eat the food that was served up.

It was liberating.

Jen was there to greet us post-boxing. A nutritionist, she was ready with a cooking demo. Oat-based pancakes, lentil stews. We nibbled on a snack, homemade hummus and carrots.

And then we were back out to the pitch, this time for 25 minutes of an intense metafit workout. High intensity 25-second bursts of burpees, spider planks and exploding star jumps.

Yes they were as physically gruelling as they sound but 25 seconds was manageable. No long, drawn-out sets and everyone worked to their own fitness level. There’s no judgment here.

A break for lunch, and some time out — a chance to even catch a chapter of a book, unheard of for a working mum of four — and then we met for a core workout, the last full on session of the day Niall reassured us.

Another snack break was scheduled. We weren’t even hungry at this stage, and this was supposed to be bootcamp, but we lapped up the apple with almond butter. The trick, the team was teaching us, was to fill up on healthy food and snacks.

So add almond butter to an apple, hemp seeds as protein to make your porridge all the more filling.

A wellness session came next and we could feel the day winding down. Relaxation and yoga sessions wrapped up the exercise.

More time out and we met for dinner at 6.30pm — turkey burgers with mashed sweet potato.

Green tea and other herbal options are on tap, with tumeric cinnamon and ginger on the side to give your drink a kick (ginger, we learned, is great on cold mornings).

Kathryn Thomas, 29 weeks pregnant when we meet and in the middle of Operation Transformation, sat with the bootcampers for dinner. This is not just some business she puts her name to. This is her passion. And it shows.

Her motivation, she says, was to bring to Ireland something that was a cross between a bootcamp and a retreat. And that’s just what Pure Results is.

“I know the word bootcamp can scare people and retreat can turn people off,” she says.

Pure Results strikes the balance between both.

We were in bed by 9pm, no coffee, no wine — this is bootcamp after all — so we’d be ready for aqua aerobics at 7am.

A new day and a new schedule. We met in the pool in the Johnstown’s Estate Spa at 7.15am, and after 45 minutes of aqua aerobics we were back to HQ for a breakfast of porridge, seeds and blueberries.

A little time out again before another boxing class — it’s a daily feature on the schedule, Niall explains, because it’s Kathryn’s favourite workout.

Again, Niall mixed it up, made a game out of finding a sparring partner in a ‘musical chairs for grown-ups’ icebreaker. We were wrecked, but we were giddy, laughing and genuinely high fiving and hugging by the end of the session. The group hug, something I might normally roll my eyes at, felt genuine, natural. I was loving this.

Lunch was sweet potato and salmon cakes with salmon. Again, the nutrition team was on hand to share recipes, explaining that while this course is gluten and dairy free, you could add flour at home and gently fry the cakes for a crispy effect.

And then, finally, the last workout of the day (the schedule is colour coded — red the tough classes, blue the easier). Circuits meant sit-ups on wet muddy grass but none of us cared at this stage.

A snack and a nutrition talk from Jen, and there was fish and mango curry for dinner.

I departed for Cork then, leaving the others for day three of the programme: morning stretches; life coaching; the assault course (which I tried before I left — one of the toughest five-minute work outs of my life); aerobics and dance and body balance (yoga stretches).

Parknasilla.

Thomas is changing the format this year. Her week-long courses that began at Inish Beg are now in three destinations around the country; Mount Falcon in Mayo; Parknasillla; and Johnstown Estate. There are three-day/two night bootcamps, and starting this summer, with mums in mind, one night/two-day options. There are also one-day bootcamps, the Cork event sold out last year and while the date is still to be confirmed, Kathryn says it’s on the schedule.

What really struck me about Pure Results was the number of people who were there on their fourth or fifth course — there couldn’t be a better endorsement for a programme. Nearly half of our group had already experienced it before. Don’t be worried or intimidated, they reassured me, another telling me the trainers modify the classes for all levels of fitness, from other gym instructors to first timers looking for weight loss. And pounds will be lost.

On the week-long programme the average is 6-7 pounds — one woman told me she lost 11. And the wonderful women I met on that course are right — there is nothing to be worried about. It’s an exhausting but exhilarating weekend, and one I’ll be signing up for again.

- The upcoming Pure Results week-long camps take place in Parknasilla Resort and Spa, March 16-23 and April 13-20. Prices start from €1,199. pureresultsbootcamp.com