The Rock Bottom Moment That Caused Ree Drummond To Lose Nearly 60 Pounds

Ree Drummond is best known for her popular Food Network cooking show, "The Pioneer Woman," where she whips up butter-laden dishes and decadent desserts. 

But Drummond recently made some major lifestyle changes that caused her to shed nearly 60 pounds. In a September interview with Entertainment Tonight, the media mogul — who in addition to her show also writes cookbooks, helms a cooking website, and owns a bakery and restaurant in her Oklahoma hometown — revealed that she had a light bulb moment that caused her to take control of her inevitable weight gain.

"I basically hit rock bottom eating chips and salsa one night," Drummond revealed. "I went a little overboard, but I thought that night, 'I am going to start tomorrow.'" She started by doing "something different." Drummond said her goal was more about feeling better and not about losing a certain amount of weight. She also said she doesn't create special meals or stick to a specific diet. "I still eat the foods that I cook my family," Drummond told ET. "I still eat cake — I just eat a Rhode Island–sized piece instead of a Texas-sized piece!" It looks like Drummond has found her happy medium. 

Ree Drummond penned an insightful post on her Pioneer Woman blog to explain how she lost the "considerable weight" she gained over a three-year span. She admitted that she wanted to slim down for her daughter Alex's wedding, which took place in May. But she added that her biggest motivation was that she wanted to "feel better and have more energy."

In her post, Drummond revealed that she did not go on a diet, fast, buy specialty foods, or use a trainer. What she did do was consume fewer calories and track them with a calorie counter. She weighed her food with a digital scale, she upped her protein intake, cut down on sugar, and completely cut out alcohol for months.

Drummond also added daily exercise to her schedule, such as walking, Pilates, using a rowing machine, and incorporating weights to build muscle. Impressively, she did it all at her ranch and not at a gym. She also started using a standing desk instead of sitting while she worked. Drummond said her husband, Ladd Drummond, suggested that if she really wanted to build muscle in order to burn calories, she needed to focus on her legs. So, she started doing lunges, squats, straight-leg deadlifts, and calf raises. Reflecting on her weight-loss journey, she wrote, "I mostly just think about how much better I feel every day and feel grateful that I've made it over the hump."

Ree Drummond continued to film her television show throughout her weight-loss journey, so fans have seen a few glimpses of her new physique as new episodes have aired. Her new body was most noticeable on a "Pioneer Woman" episode that filmed in May and featured her oldest daughter Alex's wedding to her longtime boyfriend, Mauricio Scott. The mother of the bride wore a long light blue and tan Jovani dress to show off her slimmer body at the outdoor wedding that was held on the famous family's ranch in Oklahoma.

In a post on her "Pioneer Woman" blog, Drummond revealed that when she ordered the gown, she "ordered it in the size I wanted to be (or thought was realistic) by the wedding," then stuck it in her closet. Her weight-loss goals lined up with the wedding date, and she was able to pull it out!

Drummond also teased her wedding day weight loss in a cheeky caption to an Instagram sneak peek of the "Ranch Wedding" episode. She captioned the clip to tell her fans that she was looking forward to dressing up for her daughter's nuptials. "It'll be fun to experience it all while wearing jeans and no Spanx!" she wrote.

Before she changed her eating habits, Ree Drummond didn't hold back from using her favorite high-fat ingredients in her recipes. Calories counters weren't a thing. In fact, in her "less healthy" heyday as a TV chef, the queen of comfort food has even been known to make an over-the-top grilled pimento cheese sandwich using mayonnaise on the outside of the bread! 

In a 2012 interview with Imbibe magazine, Drummond admitted that cheese is her guilty pleasure. "I love cheese, so anything with drippy, melty cheese is front and center," she said at the time. "And I love anything with coffee in it — tiramisu, coffee ice cream, pot du crème — basically, nothing that's good for you."

She also told Today in 2019 that cheese is a food she could never live without. "One thing I eat everyday would have to be cheese," Drummond said. "Cheese of any kind. I will take it any way I can get it. I love melted Swiss. I love cubes of white Cheddar. I love goat cheese, feta cheese on a salad. The list goes on. I never met a cheese I didn't like."