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After dabbling in—Then Quit: The Ketogenic Diet in 2019, the pioneer woman Ree Drummond has been looking for her new flow when it comes to fitness and eating. Ella’s rowing workouts helped set her tone, but after dropping her son Bryce off at college in January 2021, she admits that bottomed out” and felt out of control by overeating.
So, about a year ago, “I decided I wanted to lose weight. I had no idea how I was going to do this, I just knew I had to start. After years of writing cookbooks, hosting a cooking show, owning a restaurant and bakery and with a cooking website, the weight had gone up over the years and my activity/exercise level had almost dropped to a halt,” says Drummond in a recent blog post. “Last January, at my highest weight and with my daughter’s wedding just around the corner in May, I knew I had to get started. A year later, I lost 55 pounds.”
Just as important as what he did to lose weight, Drummond says, is what he didn’t do: “I didn’t use a trainer, I didn’t go keto or paleo or follow an official diet, I didn’t eat special foods and I didn’t do intermittent fasting. Those things work.” for a lot of people, which is wonderful! I just hadn’t been successful with them.”
Instead, he weighed foods to control portion size and calories. For exercise, Drummond got back on the rowing machine, walked, lifted weights and set up a standing desk. He tracked his weight daily using the happy scale and aimed to eat more protein, less sugar and consume less alcohol.
“Today I feel stronger, more in balance (both physically and mentally), and I have more energy to walk around. I’m wearing clothes that didn’t feel comfortable a year ago, I feel better about my appearance, and I’m smiling more (yes, even more than I used to smile, which was a lot, haha) and that’s a nice feeling at 53,” he says. “After last year’s experience, I feel better. I have more energy. I’m more motivated to take on projects and put things on the calendar. Feeling good seeps into every aspect of my life.”
That’s the high-level overview of what Drummond says made the biggest difference in helping her lose a little over a pound a week (psst… dietitians talk about how much weight you can really safely lose in a month). In his February 5 blog post on 10 things that made a difference, he shares his tips and tricks in more detail. Read on for a summary.
10 Secrets That Helped Ree Drummond Lose 55 Pounds In 1 Year
1. It started quite strictly.
Drummond admits that she “was all-in for the first five months. After that initial stage of counting calories, lifting weights, etc., I relaxed my efforts a little from the summer months. During those first five disciplined months, I developed a good sense of portion size, calorie count, and protein percentage, and was able to go about my daily life with a general sense of the choices I had to make.” Those first few months, Drummond was confident in his mastery of portion sizes: “Starting with that discipline actually allowed me more freedom later in the process.”
Related: Ree Drummond has a creative use for rotisserie chicken that’s perfect for lazy weeknight dinners.
two. She realized how “off the mark” her portion sizes were.
Drummond admits that “one of the main things I learned in the initial months of my weight loss was how off the rails I had been for years when it came to portion sizes.” He counted calories during those months that he measured food portions. This “really broke the spell of eating too much volume and during this process, I trained my body to get used to smaller, well, I should say more normal portions.” For more information on this, see our visual guide to food serving sizes.
3. He focused on strength training of large muscle groups.
Instead of just doing bicep curls ad nauseum to tone his arms, Drummond focused on building muscles in his legs and butt. Larger muscles not only burn more calories at rest, they also help with stability and balance as we age. “The months I spent doing squats, lunges, and deadlifts early in my weight loss journey really laid the groundwork for a more efficient calorie-burning summer and fall. I’m not a doctor or a trainer, but I can tell you that as I watched the number on the scale continues to drop through the summer and fall, I knew without a doubt it was largely due to the muscle I had built. It’s like an engine that’s always running behind the scenes! (Want to follow suit from Ree?Try this 10 minute home workout without equipment to build strength.)
Four. Even if it wasn’t through formal exercise, Drummond moved his body every day.
Drummond’s schedule picked up in September when school, football and filming for his show resumed, and as he began to focus on promoting his new cookbook, The pioneer woman cooks super easy! (Buy it: $18.07, target). At that point, he cut back to two or three workouts a week instead of five or six. But thanks to the muscle base he had built and the fact that he was still eating his newly adjusted portions, “this decline didn’t undo my hard work.” That said, she felt lethargic if she strayed too far from her new routine, “so I made sure to stay more committed than ever to using my standing desk, step away to take frequent breaks, and put myself in a position to move more.” . Today, I still use a standing desk and don’t allow myself to collect too much dust during the day.”
5. He drank alcohol, but only in moderation.
For the first few months, Drummond refrained from drinking, “but starting in the summer, I started having a social drink or two here and there. I avoided (and still avoid) anything sugary or high-calorie,” he says. . Instead of cocktails with lots of added sugar like daiquiris and margaritas, Drummond opts for citrusy options like “agua de rancho” (tequila, lime juice, and sparkling water) and white wine with lime and a splash of sparkling water, spritzer- style.
“These sparkling water-enriched drinks are great for two reasons: first, they force you to hydrate while you’re drinking alcohol or wine! Second, they keep you from drinking too much alcohol. They also spread the calories more: in other words, you can have two drinks for the calories of one.
Related: How much alcohol should you drink?
6. Drummond weighed himself daily.
Warning: This is not for everyone. (This is what a dietitian says is the most important question to ask yourself if you are dealing with how often you need to weigh yourself). “I realize this can be a trigger for some, and I can’t stress it enough: My decision to weigh myself every day isn’t about obsessing over every pound and ounce. I just realized that when excess weight has slipped over the years, it’s happened when I chose not to weigh myself,” admits Drummond.
For the two years leading up to her wellness start in January 2021, she never got on the scale “because I never wanted to know. Without seeing that number increase over time, it was easy for me to tell myself that it was probably just a few pounds.” As a result, he now weighs himself first thing in the morning and tracks the trend over time using an app called happy scale. “Now, I’m settling just below the original goal weight I envisioned for myself, which, by the way, was intentionally realistic! I wasn’t struggling to be a pre-marital, pre-baby, pre-thirty weight! I just a good weight where I thought I would feel and look better, and where I felt I would be able to maintain and be successful in the long term.
7. No food was forbidden.
For the first five months, Drummond intended to limit added sugars and avoid alcohol, but otherwise shared meals with his family and ate smaller portions while he did so. (She, like us, says that I could eat cheese every day.) “I also ate more protein-rich foods, such as egg whites, chicken, fish, lean beef, plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, Swiss cheese, and dark green leafy vegetables,” she says. “Now, a year later, I eat pretty much all the foods I love, with two big differences: first, my portions are much more reasonable. Second, I’m still paying attention to the daily proportions I spend on both protein rich foods and foods with wasted calories.
8. He limited “wasted calories.”
During the five months of “nutritional boot camp I underwent,” Drummond found that she was expending far more calories than she’d like in what she considered “wasted calories,” such as soda, cookies, chips, donuts, and cake. She reasons, “If I’m eating X calories today, do I want to waste 300 of those calories on a donut? Or do I want to spend 50 of them on a nice dark chocolate instead to get my fix and then go on to eat more nutritious stuff?” ?”
Some days, he decides to devour the donut. Some days, she skips it. And others, she takes a bite. This moderate mindset helps her avoid falling into her old habit of eating three donuts in a day after depriving herself of it for too long. “There’s no hard and fast rule, but I’m more aware of that now, and I try to take the donut into account in the day as a whole.”
Related: Ree Drummond’s Creamy Broccoli Carbonara Is Surprisingly Healthy
9. To help make these changes more sustainable, Drummond focused on slow and steady detoxification rather than drastic ones.
Drummond says she decided to skip the diets she mentioned earlier (like keto) because she wanted “more control over the inevitable ebbs and flows over time.” Instead of relying on a macronutrient or juicing cleanse to be meal plan MVP, Drummond approached “my weight loss from several different angles. I’ve been able to experiment with different approaches: building muscle, eating more protein, moving/standing more, working out on the rowing machine, logging my daily weight, etc. I can continue all of these over time, or I can emphasize some more than others, or choose some over others.”
10 He confirmed that his worth is not tied to his weight.
Drummond prefers to think of his new normal as a change in perspective rather than a change in lifestyle. “During the first five months (and the months that followed) of my trip, I experienced a seismic shift in my perspective on everything I’ve mentioned: portion size, calories, daily movement, sitting vs. standing, percent of protein, muscle mass, wasted calories, etc. I think of all those things totally differently now,” she says. “After last year’s experience, I feel better. I have more energy. I’m more motivated to take on projects and put things on the calendar. Feeling good seeps into every aspect of my life. And that has changed my perspective. But come full circle… it hasn’t changed my life in and of itself.”
Until next time: 7 things Rebel Wilson did to stay healthy and maintain her 77-pound weight loss
