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Kelly Ripa has been sober from alcohol for eight years, and while she was able to quit after just a month of not drinking, it did have a surprising effect on her body.
There are many reasons why someone might want to quit drinking alcohol, and there are many benefits. Since alcohol can have a lot of calories, one of the things people say after they stop drinking is that they lost weight and felt less bloated - that did not happen for the talk show host.
Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, have both been sober since 2017. The 54-year-old told Andy Cohen, who stepped in for her husband on Wednesday episode of Live with Kelly and Mark, that when she quit drinking, a lot of people told her she was going to lose weight. “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,’” she explained.
But the opposite happened, “I gained 12 pounds [and said], ‘I don’t understand this magical weight loss that people apply.'" she said. Ripa had a theory of why this happened, saying, "I think I just took to eating the sugars.”
Ripa explained her wellness journey in the past, telling PEOPLE it all started after she did a sober month with her friends. "I just never went back to it," she told the outlet. “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." Although she wasn't ever a heavy drinker who got drunk, she felt it the next morning after just a couple of glasses of wine at girls' night.
She quipped on a January 2020 episode of her show that she believed her quitting alcohol influenced the drop in the USA market, “They’re saying that Americans bought less wine last year,” she joked. “Now, I believe this is because I quit drinking that I caused this dip. I have influenced the market ... I'm not saying I’ve driven people [from drinking alcohol]. I’m saying, I stopped buying wine, and there’s [been] a dip.”