‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond Shared Her Easy Weight Loss Tips
The Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond has been dedicating her days to healthier living, and she’s sharing some of the tips and tricks she’s used to lose weight. Drummond kicked off her health journey in January and has seen results — losing weight and getting more active — all while going the sensible route rather than doing any fad diets.
How much weight did Ree Drummond lose?
Drummond shared her weight loss journey in a June 15 post on The Pioneer Woman blog, explaining how she got motivated to make a healthy change. She admitted that she wanted to “slim down” for her daughter’s May wedding, adding, “what motivated me the most was just wanting to feel better and have more energy.”
“In January, just before I bit the bullet and took the leap, I was tired, puffy, and desperate,” she wrote, adding, “And I knew I shouldn’t be feeling that way.”
Drummond shared that she’s still on her health journey and revealed how much weight she’s lost so far. “As of today, I’ve lost 43 pounds,” she explained. “I hesitate to even say that number, because for me, the way I feel today, it isn’t about the weight loss.”
“I definitely needed to lose weight for my own preference based on where I thought I should be, but it’s more about how I feel after a few months of regular exercise, more moving, and more mindful eating,” The Pioneer Woman star continued.
“Feeling good is really all that matters, and because of that, the weigh-ins are becoming less and less important to me,” she added. “I’ll keep weighing in every day to have all the information I need going forward, but the number isn’t what I’m paying attention to now.”
How Ree Drummond lost so much weight
In her post, Drummond detailed how she lost weight, hoping to provide “inspiration” to others. “As a 52-year-old lover of food and avoider of exercise, I just really want to share what worked for me,” she explained.
Drummond took a sensible approach for her health journey, eating fewer calories and using a digital food scale to be accurate about her calorie intake.
She also exercised six days a week, with options like walking the dogs 2 or 3 miles, using a rowing machine, or doing pilates workouts. Drummond found she needed to build muscle when she hit a plateau and worked on her lower body with squats and lunges while using hand weights.
Drummond also ate less sugar, didn’t drink alcohol, and added more protein to her diet. She shared some of her go-to high protein foods: “Low fat plain Greek yogurt (add a little sugar free vanilla syrup for a sweet snack, or use it as the basis for veggie dips), low fat cottage cheese, lean beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, cod, egg whites (I’m obsessed), raw almonds, 1% milk, Swiss cheese, homemade protein balls (recipe coming soon) … I love it all! Then to fill in the blanks, lots of spinach (raw or cooked), an apple a day, kale, carrots … the good stuff!”
Drummond credited the Happy Scale app to track her progress and said she moved to a standing desk so that she wasn’t as sedentary.
Ree Drummond shared what she didn’t do during her health journey
Drummond also laid out what she didn’t do to lose weight. She said she’s tried the keto diet and intermittent fasting before but didn’t find any success.
She also didn’t buy any “specialty diet foods,” saying she “wanted to eat real food.”
Drummond also didn’t use a trainer, but did get some helpful advice from her husband Ladd about building muscle. She also didn’t join Weight Watchers, Noom, or any other weight loss programs.
