Sherri Shepherd Reveals the Importance of Saying No, Self-Care and Staying Strong in Her 50s (EXCLUSIVE)

Today, Sherri Shepherd is feeling excited and rejuvenated. After a four mile walk and a mug of mushroom coffee, she is ready to greet the day with her glorious smile. It helps that just a few weeks, she was relaxing and recharging on her Bahamian vacation. Now, it’s back to work on the third season of her her hit daily syndicated daytime talk show, Sherri, that started back up on September 23rd. 

At 57, Sherri knows how to juggle the responsibilities of life—talk show host, podcaster with Two Funny Mamas, stand-up comedy shows, author and mom to a 19 year-old son, Jeffrey. She recently partnered with Pfizer for the “This Is Your Shot” campaign, raising awareness about pneumococcal pneumonia risks for those with diabetes. (Sherri was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes herself  in 2007.) 

“I’ve been up and down in my life and know that feeling of fighting and trying to stay on the right path and stay healthy,” she says as our Woman’s World cover girl (Get your copy here!). Looking back, Sherri recalls her very first foray into the daytime talk show arena. “It failed—I wasn’t ready then, but sometimes you just have to try it.”

That faith belief, which she’s fostered through daily prayer and meditation, has also helped Sherri become a better mom and understands herself better. “I want to inspire people and know that you can reinvent yourself,” Sherri says. “I want to continue to challenge myself and have people see that the foundation for me is laughter.” 

Here, read about Sherri’s strategies for staying healthy and happy.

Woman’s World: You have general ease and rapport with your talk show guests, so where did your self-confidence come from in order to connect with everyone?

Sherri Shepherd: It took years to gain self-confidence. I could say I was born with it, but I was not. My family is still shocked that it is me that is doing what I do because I was very scared to ask any kind of questions to anybody and did not have very high self-esteem. 

I’d say my self confidence in part comes from my son, Jeffrey, because I’ve had to learn to advocate for him because he is on the spectrum. I had to teach my son to advocate for himself because he won’t do it until he sees me do it. He’s 19 now. He has a hard time speaking up and I have to show him it’s okay to speak up. My grandmother would always say, “If you don’t ask, the answer is already and always will be no.” When you stop overthinking things, it allows you a certain amount of freedom. It’s okay to fail because we always will and if you don’t, you’ll never grow. So it’s all been a learning process for me.

WW: Your smile is contagious and I remember you told me that a beautiful smile makes a person look younger. How so?

SS: I can always tell when I look at a person and they look younger. I say to them, “You smile and laugh a lot don’t you?,” and they say, “Yeah, I do.” I think laughing is good for the soul because if you laugh and have a great sense of humor and see through to the positive, that absolutely fuels the inside of your body and it comes from within and it’s contagious. I always say to Jeffrey, make it a great day—smile.

WW: What might be your morning ritual?

SS: In my twenties and thirties, I’d wake up dancing, dropping it like it’s hot and “Ooooo look at this body!” Now I wiggle my fingers and my toes and go, “God, am I here or am I with you?” Once I say, “Okay, I’m alive,” I thank God for another day and another chance to get this thing called life–right. And I just sit in gratitude for a moment to start my day. 

I sit and visualize what I want my day to look like. I thank God for three things, ask Him for three things and pray for three people. I do some exercises and I’m ready to do my day whether it’s to go workout, get ready for work, go get Jeffrey up…and I’ve learned to slow down because my son doesn’t like it when I talk fast or move fast. He has a sign on his door that says “Management Please Knock and Wait for Me To Answer.” So I lower my voice, have to be real calm and not scream, “JEFFREY!”    

WW: What might be a workout routine for you?

SS: Walking is the thing I can do on my own; I walked four miles this morning, but I go to a gym four times a week and lift weights. The real truth is that as we age, we lose muscle mass and the muscle mass helps if you fall. In our twenties and thirties, we take our bodies for granted. So now, if we don’t exercise, we lose muscle mass and they begin to atrophy. That’s how people begin to get shorter. I know I have lost some height. I was 5’1” and now I’m 5 feet. I lift heavy weights at the gym and it strengthens the core, so if you fall, you know how to fall and can get up. And I’m boxing.

WW: How do you overcome stress?

SS: I think you have to give yourself some time and some grace. I think we all want to get up and look at our phones, listen to the news and sometimes you have to say “no.” Let me reset my body, let me think about how I want my day to be and I think that alleviates a lot of the stress when you give a few moments to yourself. I think when you lie there or go outside and just sit and pray for three people, thank God for three things and ask Him for three things, it does relieve a lot of stress because it’s not all about you. And I’m very intentional about wanting to smile…all these teeth, I want to use them to make people feel better. 

WW: What are your healthy go-to snacks?

SS: Having diabetes, you really have to be intentional about doing things. Diabetes isn’t something you can leave to chance and I have found that if I’m not intentional about finding some healthy snacks, like a handful of almonds instead of some chocolate, it affects my mood for the whole day. I know when I’m not eating right and then I don’t feel good and don’t smile. I’ve also learned about blueberries and how healthy they are. So I made for the first time cottage cheese and put in some blueberries and some cinnamon. Even though I love watermelon and mangoes, grapes, I just can’t eat too many of them because it raises up my glucose level and I get dizzy and not present, lightheaded and irritable. And I’m not smiling. 

WW: I love you telling me a stress reducer is just saying no.

SS: I literally have not taken a vacation in years, and this summer I was going to work on a series and I said, you know what, I’m exhausted. I’ve given so much to my talk show and I love it, but it’s draining. So to go into work right away, I had to listen to my body and sit down. 

Tyler Perry told me I have to reset and recharge. He said the level I’m going to, if you don’t recharge and reset you will never make it to that level. I did one movie with Taraji, a drama, and everything else I said no to and said it’s a blessing for somebody else. If I have said no to certain projects, which I did over the summer, hopefully the project will come back to me and I can say yes.  

WW: What guest for your talk show would satisfy your bucket list?

SS: There are so many people I want to come on. I want Meryl Streep to come and talk to me. I would love the Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett—I’m in love with her because she speaks her mind and isn’t scared of people. You come at her and she will come back at you with her intelligence.

WW: Do you have a nighttime ritual?

SS: I have to work on that because that’s when I answer my emails and when I buy stuff off the internet. Shopping is my therapy and it’s not like I’m shopping high end stores. I love shopping online. I buy and I have seven boxes of wigs and think, ‘What am I going to do with all this hair?’ Then I do some stretches, text my nieces telling them how much they mean to me because I don’t have a lot of time to spend on the phone, but just letting them know I was thinking about them and it’s a good way to connect. I love doing that.   

WW: What’s the first thing you would tell your younger self?

SS: It’s okay to say no. Just say no. If you say no, you won’t lose your friends; if you do, then they weren’t friends in the first place. When people get mad then they have no place in my life because people have to understand.

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