Kelly Ripa Reveals Shocking Impact Quitting Alcohol Had on Her Body

Kelly Ripa doesn’t abide by the idea that if you stop drinking, you will lose weight, revealing the exact opposite happened for her when she quit alcohol eight years ago.

The veteran television host opened up about the subject on Wednesday’s (January 22) episode of Live with Kelly and Mark, where Andy Cohen filled in as guest host while her husband, Mark Consuelos, was away filming a new project.

In the show’s opening segment, the Watch What Happens Live host revealed how he’s currently taking part in “Dry January” and swearing off alcohol for the entire month. Sharing his experience, Cohen said that “usually a little weight loss comes my way after,” before joking, “not really happening yet.”

Ripa chimed in, saying, “I told you when I quit drinking, I expected there to be this windfall of weight loss because everybody’s like, ‘Well, you are going to get too skinny, and you can’t afford to lose it.'” But that isn’t what happened in her experience.

“I gained 12 pounds [and said], ‘I don’t understand this magical weight loss that people apply,'” she continued.

The All My Children alum went on to share her thoughts on why this was, noting, “I think I just took to eating the sugars. Because apparently, alcohol is like a lot of sugar, which you don’t really realize when it goes in it tastes kind of bitter.”

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Ripa first opened up about giving up drinking in a January 2020 episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, revealing she’d stopped consuming alcohol entirely back in 2017. The following month, she told People it started after she and her friends tried a “sober month” and she realized she “felt great” afterward.

“It wasn’t even really a thought process. It felt great, I felt like I looked great, I felt like I didn’t feel hungover,” she told the outlet. “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.”

She added, “I just didn’t really feel the need or desire to go back to it. It wasn’t really a choice or a thought, it was just, ‘Yeah, I guess I don’t drink anymore.’”

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