Last year was a transformative one for Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman. The star has lost 55 pounds since January 2021, and has since kept it off after she decided she wanted to start before her daughter’s wedding in May. Little exercise and a hectic work schedule had led the Food Network host to her highest weight ever—but not for long.

In June, she was 43 pounds lighter and explained how cutting calories, building muscle, increasing her protein intake, eating less sugar, eliminating alcohol, logging her weight with an app, and other habits were essential. She admits in a new blog post that she thought it would be a final weight loss recap, but she’s since lost even more pounds and is sharing everything the experience taught her.

Related: Eating Habits to Lose Abdominal Fat As You Age, Say Dietitians

Starting in January, Drummond went all-in and focused on the changes like calorie counting and exercising that once the summer came around, felt like daily life.

“The initial, more intense, stage doesn’t have to last forever,” says she is “glad I’d been so strict for that first stage, because it wound up being a nice crash course that equipped me going forward. Starting out with that discipline actually allowed me more freedom later in the process.”

“I can’t emphasize this enough,” Drummond says in the blog post. “Building muscle—not just the smaller muscles in your arms, but the larger muscles in your legs and butt—will turbo charge your weight loss like nothing else and set you up for more success.”

Moves she says helped burn the most calories in the initial months were squats, lunges, and deadlifts. Good news—these are also some of The 5 Best Exercises to Build Better Glutes, Trainer Says.

Once she started paying more attention not only to what she was putting in her body, but how much, Drummond started breaking the spell. “I trained my body to get used to smaller—well, I should say more normal—portions,” she says noting that a year later she is still “eating all the foods I love, but my body is satisfied with much less of it.”

Although she cut alcohol in the first half of the year, Drummond admits that having a social drink once in a while is not a bad thing at all. She says she swaps sugary, caloric drinks like daiquiris and margaritas and other sweet cocktails for things like Ranch Water—which is clear tequila, lime juice, and sparkling water over ice—or a White Wine Spritzer—made up of a small amount of cold white wine, sparkling water, and lemon slices—because they are more hydrating and help her to not drink as much. Basically, it’s like having “two drinks for the calories of one,” she says.

In addition to building muscle and getting used to exercising, Drummond explains in her blog post that movement every day helped her achieve her goals. After the initial weight loss, she found herself sidetracking from her routine, and was only exercising two or three times a week—but on the days when she wasn’t, she could feel the difference.

“So I made sure to stay more committed than ever to using my standing desk, stepping away for frequent breaks, and putting myself in a position to move more,” she says, noting that little habits like this have stuck. “Today, I’m still using a standing desk and not letting myself collect too much dust during the day.”

The act of stepping on a scale can be triggering, Drummond admits, but seeing the number for her wasn’t about obsessing over each ounce she wanted to lose. “Before I decided to lose weight last January, I don’t think I’d stepped on a scale for two years,” she explains. “I willfully hadn’t weighed myself because I never wanted to know. Without seeing that number go up over time, it was easy for me to tell myself that it was probably just a few pounds.”

Instead, it now helps her identify trends in her body. She includes screenshots of her weight tracking via the Happy Scale app. Here’s what she says about what the habit is like now:

“I’m settling in just below the original goal weight I imagined for myself—which, by the way, was intentionally realistic! I wasn’t striving for pre-marriage, pre-baby, pre-thirties weight! 😊 Just a good weight where I thought I’d feel and look better, and where I felt I’d be able to maintain and have longer term success.”

“There’s nothing on my list of banned foods!” Drummond says about her life after weight loss. Yep—nothing! Like the first lesson she learned, the first few months of 2021 were stricter in terms of her diet of a few sugary foods and no alcohol consumption. Now she follows two thoughts—”First, my portions are much more reasonable. Second, I do still pay attention to the daily proportions I’m devoting to both high protein foods and foods with wasted calories.”

Drummond says in her blog post that she looks at some foods now as calories that aren’t as beneficial and nutritional as others. These “wasted calorie” foods include sugary soft drinks, cookies, cake, potato chips, donuts, and other similar foods. Now she tries to think of eating a “Rhode Island” sized portion of these foods instead of a “Texas” size.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

“Using the doughnut as an example, some days I eat half the doughnut. Some days I decide not to eat the doughnut. Other days I’ll pinch off a bite of the doughnut. Heck, there will be a day now and then when I will eat the whole doughnut,” she says, noting that “There’s no hard and fast rule, but I’m just more mindful of it now.”

While 53-year-old says her daughter’s wedding in May was a great motivational tool for her initial weight loss, Drummond says that being steady with adding in more exercise and controlling portion sizes, and changing how she eats is easier than focusing all efforts on one thing.

“I’ve been able to experience different approaches: building muscle, eating more protein, moving/standing more, exercising on the rowing machine, logging my daily weight, etc.” she explains. Doing this has allowed her more control over the changes that come with life.

The star hesitates to say her weight loss was a “lifestyle change” because she never wanted to change her lifestyle. Instead, she says the experience has been a sort of perspective shift on portion sizes, movement, protein intake, and more, as she sees those things differently a year later.

She then shares a before and after picture, not to label one as “bad” and the other as “good”, but because “it is helpful for me to see the distance I’ve come, and to know that the changes have been good for me,” she says.

Her lifestyle is the same—she is doing the exact same things every day like “living on the ranch, filming my cooking show, working on cookbooks and my product line, and being a wife and slightly weird mom” as she was a year ago. The only difference is her weight loss and the lessons she has learned!

“Today I feel stronger, more in balance (both physically and mentally), and I have more spring to my step. I am wearing clothes I wasn’t comfortable wearing a year ago, I feel better about the way I look, and I’m smiling more,” she ends the post staying. “But to come full circle…it hasn’t changed my life itself. I still have cow manure in my yard, for example. It’s on top of snow, and it’s ruining the dreamy winter vibe. 😂 Gotta go clean that up now, but at least that’ll help me get out and move!”

For more, here are 15 Underrated Weight Loss Tips That Actually Work.

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Ree Drummond, AKA The Pioneer Woman, has undergone a massive weight loss transformation in the past six months, shedding a staggering 43 pounds since January. However, the star says it’s not a trendy diet or expensive exercise routine that helped her lose the weight. Read on to discover Drummond’s 10 essential habits for dropping the pounds and keeping them off.

For more insight into how stars really slim down, Raven-Symoné Says This Exact Diet Helped Her Lose 30 Pounds.

In a new post on her website, Drummond says that she didn’t do keto, intermittent fasting, or any type of weight loss program to shed the pounds, nor did she buy diet foods. Instead, she relied on the tried-and-true “calories in, calories out” method.

“I tried to achieve a calorie deficit most days, which means I expended more calories (through exercise and just basic daily activity) than my body required to maintain my then-weight,” she said, explaining that she used online tools to help her find out the calories in her food.

“Counting my calories was nothing short of eye opening, and for me it was essential.”

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In addition to tracking her daily caloric intake and shooting to eat fewer calories than she was burning, Drummond used a digital food scale to make sure she was consuming the right portion sizes.

“It really woke me up to the portions I had grown accustomed to eating! As with calories, I had completely lost sight of the volume I was eating—so it was an education in those first few weeks,” says Drummond, who says that she no longer weighs her portions for every meal now that she has a better idea of how to eyeball things.

Drummond says that she didn’t use a trainer to help her slim down, relying on what she had on hand instead to help her get more exercise.

“I walked 2 to 3 miles, or did the rowing machine, or did Pilates,” using a floor-based Pilates routine, she explained. “I exercised 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day (morning walk, evening rowing machine), sometimes just once.”

After finding her weight loss plateauing after just over a month on her journey, Drummond began incorporating weight-bearing exercises into her routine.

When she started, Drummond says, “I had zero strength in my lower body and my legs trembled and gave out. But I still did it, about four days a week to start, and laughed at my uncoordinated clumsiness every time.” She now does a routine of squats, lunges, and other muscle-toning exercises on a regular basis.

While Drummond says she didn’t stick to any particular diet plan to lose weight, she does admit that ramping up her protein intake was essential in terms of her weight loss.

“On a typical day, I had been landing at around 15% to 20% of my calories from protein…so I pivoted and steered my eating so that I was around 30% to 40% protein. It worked!” In doing so, Drummond says she got past her weight loss plateau and experienced greater satiety on a daily basis.

For more insight into how your favorite celebs work out, Country Star Jana Kramer Reveals the Exact Exercise Routine That Keeps Her Fit.

As a means of cutting calories while staying satisfied, Drummond cut down her sugar intake dramatically, opting instead for more filling foods. However, she says that the occasional treat is still on the menu.

“Were there days I gave in and had a piece of cake? Yes! I’m The Pioneer Woman and I love food! Ha. But the piece of cake was the size of Rhode Island instead of Texas, and it wasn’t an everyday thing,” she says.

As a means of both cutting calories and adopting healthier habits in terms of her exercise and eating, Drummond drank no alcohol during the first four months of her weight loss journey.

While Drummond says she’s “back to having an occasional grown-up beverage again,” she now opts for tequila with Topo Chico sparkling mineral water and fresh lime juice instead of more caloric drinks.

To stay on track with her weight loss, Drummond relied on the Happy Scale app, which helps illustrate how many pounds you’ve lost and the rate at which you’re losing.

“Let me tell you that it was a GAME CHANGER in terms of motivating me to keep going,’ she says.

“It was the magic bullet for me because it takes away the occasional frustration of natural ebbs and flows of weight loss by giving you your moving average weight along with your literal weight.”

Since Drummond was writing a cookbook while trying to lose weight, she opted for a standing desk to ensure she didn’t spend the whole day sitting.

“I found more than anything was that when you are working in a standing position, you are a lot more mobile and prone to step away and take breaks…If I’d been standing and working awhile and I felt like moving around, I’d just leave my desk and go outside, go get water, go take a short walk.”

Instead of declaring her weight loss journey over after shedding significant weight, Drummond says she’s looking at her transformation as an ongoing lifestyle change that keeps her feeling healthier.

“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…My experiences over the past few months have equipped me with real, doable tools that I feel like I’ll be able to whip out whenever things get off track in the coming months and years.” And for more on how celebs have stayed healthy during the pandemic, Brooke Burke Is Thrilled She Doesn’t Have to Track Calories With This Diet and Exercise Routine.

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