Camp Biche: A luxury boot camp combines French food and exercise, lots of it

Published on Tuesday 21 July 2009 16:56

I was lying on my back at six in the morning. Nothing unusual about that, you might think. Only I was on a yoga mat about to start working on my abs. Yes, stomach crunches at a time when I should still be gently snoring. But what had I expected? This was boot camp. "Was there any mention of abs on the website?" I had quizzed my fellow inmates the night before. I'd clearly focused a little too much on the promised massage a day, yoga and red wine.

Camp Biche, in south-west France, is the brainchild of Libby Pratt a self-confessed "Type A" over-achiever from Glasgow. That's Glasgow, Montana. Originally an options trader in San Francisco, she and her husband Craig Resnick fell in love with France, quit the rat race and bought a farm in the Lot where they grow walnuts and raise black-face sheep (which Libby paints). This wasn't enough to keep her busy, however. So she came up with the concept of Camp Biche.

The premise, that you can be slim and healthy by following the French way of life, isn't exactly new. The best-selling book French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano burst on to the diet scene a few years ago, beating the idea that you have to suffer to be thin around the head with a crisp white baguette. And the fact that there is one of the lowest rates of heart disease in south-west France, despite all the foie gras, has been well-documented. But the concept of offering "training" in the French lifestyle is new. And the fact that the training is done by a ballsy American adds an interesting twist.

Unsurprisingly, her clientele so far has not included any French muffin-tops. My fellow campers were two other Brits and one American: Kieran, a writer in his late thirties from London, Victoria, an early-fifties communications executive based in Dubai and Christine, a 46-year-old banker from New York. The following week, they were expecting clients from Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia, and had just hosted a Venezuelan oil baron. The staff are as international as the clientele. Joka, the pilates teacher, is Dutch, Nadine, the yoga teacher, and Veronique and Claude, the masseurs, are French, and Nina, the trainer, is Swedish.

The idea behind Camp Biche is simple. You eat three (gourmet) meals a day – think cappuccino-style chickpea mousse topped with a cream foam and a slab of foie gras, chilled melon and ginger gazpacho and a richly aromatic pear dessert poached in red wine and spices – but you keep your portions small and don't snack in between. And you exercise. The luxury angle is a clever ploy somehow suggesting that you will lose weight as part of a painless, cosseted, process and not a full-on fascist regime.

In fact, the luxury part is the gorgeous, 13th-century chateau in the medieval hilltop village of Lauzerte in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne, with its individually designed rooms furnished with Libby's antique shop finds, an outdoor swimming pool and a hot tub with panoramic views. And the massage a day. The boot camp bit is the unrelenting exercise schedule.

So abs it was at 6am. Yoga at 7am. Breakfast at 8am. A daily 16km hike at 9am. Lunch at 1pm. Circuit training and weights at 3:30pm. Pilates at 4:30pm. A massage at 5:30pm or 6:30pm. Dinner at 8pm.

The long narrow room with wooden floor and beams and windows overlooking the rolling hills was strewn with yoga mats. After a glass of hot water and lemon juice to cleanse our systems, the stomach crunches began.

Libby's west-coast twang beat out time: "The universe is perfect exactly as it is now, My body is perfect exactly as it is now." After each rep we lay back and breathed – or tried to – to Libby's take on meditation. She didn't have enough time, she had told us, to meditate and exercise. So she combined them. "Breathe in loving kindness. Breathe out loving kindness. Breathe in acceptance. Breathe out acceptance." Forget speed dating, this was speed mantras.

After Libby had finished torturing our abdominals, calm, serene Nadine floated in to give us an hour of hatha yoga. Which turned out to be almost as hard as the abs. Just as you had stretched as far as your body would go, Nadine drifted over and yanked you a little further. Proving my sneaking suspicion that we didn't really need to be relaxed at seven in the morning, Christine gently snored through most of the session.

Breakfast consisted of Libby's homemade, honey-coated granola with seeds and nuts, plus fresh fruit and yogurt, with delicious French coffee. Then it was on with the walking boots and out the door.

Walking is key to Libby's beliefs. She walks with a group of 20 octogenarian French men and women from the village near her farm every Thursday. They hike for three hours in espadrilles, without any water – and leave her (a svelte 50-year-old) trailing behind. Just in case we were thinking about moaning about our blisters …

Each day we took a different route through either the rugged Lot or the more patchwork-pretty countryside of the lush Tarn-et-Garonne. Lauzerte is one of the official stopping-off points along the old pilgrim's trail to Santiago de Compostela and some days we followed stretches of the path. With Nina at the front and Libby bringing up the rear, we wove through shady woodland, fields of sunflowers and hay threaded with poppies, down lanes bordered by vineyards and skirting dusty farmyards.

The first hour of each walk was spent in silent meditation.

On Day One, the hike finished in the middle of the Sunday morning market in picturesque little Montcuq. Craig picked us up, hot and sweaty, and drove us back for lunch. Nothing special, just a Michelin-standard (Michael, the resident chef, had a Michelin-star in Switzerland) four-course affair: a demitasse of chilled celery soup, followed by a charcuterie selection, then a mouthwatering dish of wholegrain spaghetti with a creamy walnut sauce garnished with rocket, followed by a coffee, biscuit and banana dessert topped with foam. Michael was in charge of portion control rather than calorie control. Rosetta, his wife, was also in charge of portion control: wine wise. One bottle of wine lasted all evening – between seven people. She had the dribble down to an art form. I started to dream about wrestling the bottle from her hands. She was only small… I could easily take her.

After lunch we would sink into the hot tub, the powerful jets pummelling our aching muscles, and then it was back upstairs for Nina's session. The cheery blond bombshell had us racing around the room slapping each other (a definite ice-breaker) before a brutal hour of press-ups, steps, weights and jumping jacks.

The massage each day was a lifesaver; Claude specialises in Thai-style and Veronique does shiatsu. Both offer straightforward Swedish massage as well. I almost whimpered as I clambered on to the table on the first day.

According to Libby, Day Three, however, is when you hit a brick wall. As Day Two dawned, I found it hard to imagine feeling any worse. I was stiff, in pain and could barely hobble in my walking boots.

Day Three, by comparison, was fine. I was starting to feel a loosening in my muscles. Even Nina's attempt at torture – running up and down the steep stone steps of Lauzerte under a searing sun, in front of a bemused old Frenchman, smoking in the shade, didn't faze me. That night we had enough energy to sneak out to the bar in the village with Craig.

On Day Four I almost skipped upstairs to the abs workout and by Day Five I was on the homeward stretch. On Day Six we managed 600 reps in 23 minutes and I actually felt sad that it was almost over. I'd come to enjoy the strict schedule, although, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl, I skipped Nina's last class with Christine and we lazed on loungers by the pool.

But did it work? You can't work miracles in one week but we could all tighten our belts an extra notch. "Some clients nickname it Camp Bitch," Libby had joked at the beginning of the week. Not us. We were all happy campers.

Factfile camp biche

PACKAGE

A week at Camp Biche costs 3,000 per person (based on single occupancy – there are discounts for couples or friends sharing rooms) including full-board accommodation and all activities (yoga and pilates classes, guided hikes, circuit training and massages) and airport transfers. Tel: [phone], www.campbiche.com

HOW TO GET THERE

Camp Biche is an hour-and-a-half's drive from Toulouse. Jet2 flies direct from Edinburgh to Toulouse twice a week and has flights from 45.99 one way, including all taxes. Tel: [phone], www.jet2.com

AND THERE'S MORE

For information about the Tarn-et-Garonne and the Lot regions visit www.tourisme-tarn-et-garonne.com and www.franceguide.com

For alternative French and European destinations, please visit www.holidays.scotsman.com