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For most people, giving up alcohol means fewer calories and maybe even a smaller waistline. But for Kelly Ripa? Not so much.
On the Wednesday, January 22 episode of LIVE with Kelly and Mark, the 54-year-old Hope & Faith actress got candid about the unexpected changes she experienced after ditching booze eight years ago.
"When I quit drinking, I expected there to be this windfall of weight loss because everybody's like, 'Well, you are gonna get too skinny, and you can't afford to lose it,'" Ripa told Andy Cohen, who was filling in for her co-host and husband, Mark Consuelos. "I gained 12 pounds [and said], 'I don't understand this magical weight loss that people apply.' I think I just took to eating the sugars."
While chatting with People in 2020, the beloved talk show host said that she first gave up alcohol during a "sober month."
"All my girlfriends did it, we all did it together — and I just never went back to it," she explained to the outlet. "It wasn't even really a thought process. It felt great, I felt like I didn't feel hungover. Not that I was a heavy drinker — I wasn't someone who got drunk — but even like two glasses of wine at a girl's night out dinner; I would feel it the next morning."
Ripa went on to say she didn't feel much of a pull to pick up a drink again. "I just didn't really feel the need or desire to go back to it," she revealed. "It wasn't really a choice or a thought, it was just, 'Yeah, I guess I don't drink anymore.'"
This isn't the first time the New York Times best-selling author has shared her struggles with weight gain. Last September, she joked on Live about packing on 68 lbs during her first pregnancy while Consuelos, 53, who "decided he was going to join a gym and hire a trainer," turned into "Hercules."
"You gained the weight for both of us," Consuelos joked at the time.
The couple, who've been married since 1996, share three kids: Michael, 27, Lola, 23, and Joaquin, 21.
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