Sherri Shepherd has been busy lately with balancing her role as a co-host on Dish Nation, recurring roles on ABC’s Call Your Mother and Netflix’s Mr. Iglesias, and launched a pocast and she also started her own wig line with the "NOW" collection by Lux Hair, that supports women who have been fighting breast cancer and lost their hair with chemo. And now, it was even announced that she will be the permanent host of Wendy Williams' talk show.
Although technically Shepherd is taking over Williams’ show in the Fall of 2022, the show will be reportedly transformed into something that fits Shepherd’s personality. On the day she announced the big news, Shepherd addressed the “crazy stories online” and honored Williams.
“I do wanna say there have been all of these crazy stories online about my replacing Wendy and I am here to tell you that, that is not true,” Shepherd said. “No one can replace the queen, nobody. And trust me, I am not trying to at all. It is Wendy’s place to share her story with you but I do wanna give the queen her props. Wendy had a legendary career in radio and this show was specifically crafted for her. No one can do this format but Wendy.”
Even with all that going on, there is one thing she wants to keep her attention on — her personal health.
“We’re not going to be in the quarantine for much longer, I’m having that much faith, but I’ve got to lose this weight before I get out!” Sherri says. “I’ve got to get back to the basics of being healthy.”
Recently, she stunted in a Rihanna look-a-like dress for Halloween and had all her celebrity friends talking.
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Earlier this year, she posted a couple of pics to her Instagram showcasing her weight loss progress. Newsflash: She looks AMAZING!
"15lbs & a #doublechin gone..." she captioned the photos.
But this isn't Sherri's first battle with weight or health. She was a diabetic and suffered from numerous health conditions when she was overwieght.
“If I didn’t have diabetes, I would probably be at the International House of Pancakes eating a stack of pancakes with butter and syrup,” says Shepherd, 46. “I would probably be 250 pounds. I would not be going to the doctor. I probably wouldn’t be married to my husband, Lamar Sally. I wouldn’t be healthy for my son, Jeffrey.”
At 5-foot-1, she now weighs under 150 pounds, down from 197 pounds several years ago. Once she was taking three medications for diabetes, but now that she’s eating healthier, exercising regularly and keeping her blood sugar in the right range, the doctor has taken her off all medications for the disease.
Sherri previously partnered with the weight loss incentive company, HealthyWager, in 2019, where she had weight loss success.
Being an individual weight loss challenge customized to her goals, the HealthyWager was the perfect fit for Sherri’s busy schedule.
Not only was she able to pick her weight loss goal and how long she wanted to lose it, but she also had the flexibility to choose HOW she lost the weight. “There’s something about betting on yourself; it’s so much more fun and so much more of an incentive.”
Despite her success, the weight steadily crept back up when......COVID hit, and Sherri found herself in the “quarantine 15” group. With the start of a new year, Sherri’s now determined to leave 2020 in the past and conquer this weight with a new HealthyWager.
As a proven program that’s given her success in the past, Sherri’s excited to team up with HealthyWage again and start shedding those unwanted pounds…for cash!
Sherri remembers the exact moment she decided to turn her health around.
“I was 197 pounds, sitting on my couch, eating pizza and watching infomercials. I am an infomercial whore – I’ll watch any of them! But anyway, this infomercial for Zumba showed up and I couldn’t get to my credit card fast enough! I knew it was time.”
That new weight loss came right on time during this year's Oscar Awards. Sherri had an incredible Hollywood glam-inspired photoshoot that she shared exclusively with PEOPLE, paying homage to Black women icons.
She looked beautiful! Take a look at the pics below:
One of the initial reasons for her to get in shape was to boost her energy levels.
“I have a very energetic son,” Shepherd, 46, says of Jeffrey, now 8. “And I would take him to the park and sit on the bench while he played. And I was the mom who would be yelling at him from the benches because I was just too tired to move.”
Sure, that sounds good. But what was the real reason she lost the weight?
“You know I wanted to look good for my wedding,” she says with a laugh. “I have a closetful of clothes of all different sizes. And I have some that I call my ‘Oprah clothes.’ Remember when she came out on stage dragging a wagon full of fat? I have a fantasy of doing the same thing!”
She was so impressed with her new favorite exercise that she was the keynote speaker at the annual Zumba convention in Orlando.
Shepherd is diabetic, which sometimes makes the weight loss a little bit more complicated. But she's been able to push through.
“If I didn’t have diabetes, I would probably be at the International House of Pancakes eating a stack of pancakes with butter and syrup,” says Shepherd, 46. “I would probably be 250 pounds. I would not be going to the doctor. I probably wouldn’t be married to my husband, Lamar Sally. I wouldn’t be healthy for my son, Jeffrey.”
Shepherd details her struggles with diabetes and the changes she made in her life in her new book, Plan D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes (Even If You Don't Have It), written with Billie Fitzpatrick.
What are the diabetes-management rules that she lives by?
1. Find a doctor who challenges you.
"My mom died of diabetes complications when she was 41. When I was 40, my doctor told me, 'I don't know when you're going to have a stroke, but it's going to happen.' That was my wake-up call."
READ: 4 Things That Make Diabetes Worse
2. Scare yourself.
"Diabetes makes you feel like you're in a fog. I needed clarity because I was about to join The View and sit at a table with four formidable women. So I vowed to get healthy and strut my stuff in a swimsuit on TV. It worked: I lost 10 inches in three months."
3. Will yourself to work out.
"My trainer -- who I like to call the evil one -- and I do intervals three times a week. He puts that sucker on a crazy level-12 incline at 4.6 miles per hour, then varies the incline until I feel like I'm going to fly right off."
