Rosie O'Donnell feels as good as she looks! The 52-year-old actress and television personality is living a healthier and happier life following her recent weight loss of nearly 50 pounds, which she dropped thanks to a vertical gastric sleeve procedure last summer.
"It's very different than when you think of bypass surgery. It's newer," the former talk show host explained to Access Hollywood. "They remove two-thirds of your stomach, but everything else stays intact, and as a result of that, you can't hold as much food."
You don't want as much food, either. "The very interesting part is that in that other two-thirds are where all the hunger hormone lives," she shared. "That's the biggest surprise, that you're not hungry, right?"
Which is not to say she doesn't have to watch what she eats. "It's a tool, it's not an answer," O'Donnell said of the procedure. "You can't just get surgery and go 'I'm done' and keep eating the way you did. You have to change the way you eat, you have to exercise."
The star, who had a serious heart attack in 2012, went on to note that she's lost approximately 44 pounds. "It's a lot slower than it was at the beginning," she told Access Hollywood.
Still, she's liking her new body. Though she admitted she doesn't see herself as "sexy" yet, she has more confidence now than she had before. "Sexy? No," she said, laughing. "No, I feel better that, like, my tummy's not in the way, you know, when everybody's naked. But no. I feel maybe less shame a little bit."
The former View co-host has been married to wife Michelle Rounds since June 2012. They have one child together, daughter Dakota, 16 months; O'Donnell is also mom to kids Parker, Chelsea, Blake, and Vivienne with ex-wife Kelli Carpenter.
