‘Pioneer Woman’ Ree Drummond returns to health journey after ‘gaining weight’

“Pioneer Woman” star Ree Drummond recently opened up about restarting her health journey. 

In an April 30 post on her Pioneer Woman blog, Drummond, 56, contemplated the four years that had passed since she penned a 2021 blog post in which she shared the tips that helped her shed over 50 pounds.

The Food Network star revealed that she had gained weight after taking a year-long break from her regimen, but she has now recommitted to the plan that previously brought her success. 

“Boy has it been an adventure since then! I am, after all, a woman and a human person, and as such, I’ve had natural fluctuations since this original post was written — but much more so in the past year-plus,” Drummond wrote. “Bottom line, starting at the end of 2023 I stopped exercising and kinda stopped paying attention to what I was eating.”

She continued, “Well, around February of this year, I decided to jump back the plan I’d found success with in 2021, just not quite as high a gear as the first time. Long story short, I have found that it all still holds true, and FOR ME, it is working again like clockwork or science or whatever the word is.”

PIONEER WOMAN REE DRUMMOND SHARES TIPS FOR MAINTAINING 50-POUND WEIGHT LOSS: ‘I DON’T WANT TO…SAY NO TO FOODS’

“The very hardest part was the first week to ten days,” Drummond added. “Today it’s not that hard at all, and in fact, it’s actually rewarding as I’m feeling better and better all the time.”

The new grandmother shared a couple of changes that she had made to her 2021 plan though she noted the “the gist of it is the same.”

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“The game changer for me is two-fold: First, I’m building muscle again, which is crucial. I do lunges, squats, deadlifts, and floor exercises with ankle weights. Second, I’m eating more protein and keeping it a higher percentage of my calories,” she wrote.

In addition, Drummond explained that she was no longer weighing her food or counting calories.

“I feel that after doing that for four or five months back in 2021, it really gave me more of an awareness of portion sizes and general calories,” she wrote.

While Drummond gave up drinking alcohol completely for four months at the beginning of her weight loss journey in 2021, the celebrity chef wrote that she is not completely abstaining this time around. She explained that she enjoys having a little white wine topped with Topo Chico sparkling water “so it’s kind of a wine spritzer type of thing.”

“I still LOVE the Happy Scale app,” she wrote. “During the year I was gaining weight, I didn’t use it very often. I’m using it again and forget how helpful it is!

“I can’t emphasize enough (just to repeat) how important it is to build muscle,” Drummond added. “And how important protein is as a part of that goal. In February, the scale was pretty stubborn until I bit the bullet and started doing all the leg/butt exercises. Within a week, it kicked in.”