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Sherri Shepherd has been very vocal in the past about her battles with her weight. At one point, she came out on the stage of The View in a swimsuit and on the cover of OK! to show off what she was working with after a big weight loss. But like most women, Shepherd’s weight has gone up and down over the years, mainly because of her love for things like pasta, pancakes and more. However, she knew she had to get it in order after she was diagnosed with diabetes, right around the time her weight was hitting near 200 pounds.

She opened up about this in her new book, Plan D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes (Even If You Don’t Have It), which comes out today. As she explained in an interview with USA Today, the threat of losing her life and limbs to diabetes and possibly not being around to take care of her son, Jeffrey, really was the wake-up call she needed: 

“I was going through a nasty divorce at the time and I thought, “I’ll be dammed if my husband’s girlfriend is going to raise my son.”‘

“She said [her doctor] ‘Sherri, you love wearing those shoes, don’t you?’ I said, “Yes, I do.” She said, ‘You won’t be wearing them with your foot cut off, because if you keep eating the way you are eating, that’s where you’re headed.’”

“I learned how to get rid of the white foods – the pasta, pancakes, cereal, anything loaded with sugar.”

“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.”

“I have learned to turn my house into a gym. I do lunges when going to the laundry with my basket. When cooking, I do push-ups against the kitchen counter. I do toilet squats. My behind has not touched a toilet seat in years. I am an Olympic squatter.”

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Business Insider recently published a column called “Why I’m Getting Rid of Most of My Stuff,” written by James Altucher an active writer on business matters and a guy whose made and lost millions in business, according to his website (his bio on BI says he’s managing partner at Formula Capital). In the column, Altucher says, “I’m sick of most of the things I own.” After boiling down his wardrobe to just a few articles of clothing, he says he and his wife went a measure better and starting staying in places he found on AirBnB. Eventually they would like to stop renting a home all together and just live this way, moving from place to place, finding beds online.

“I’ve mostly replaced my laptop and ipad and phone with the Samsung Note II (and random Kinkos or business centers),” he continues. “I don’t really collect anything. And I don’t need any extra coffee blenders or whatever you call them. Do I work? I like to deliver value. And value makes money.”

As a result of this more spartan life, Altucher says “my stomach hurts less,” he has more friends, “more quiet,” and he’s actually made more money.

Altucher is obviously an extreme case, albeit one you hear about more often. Perhaps we spent so much time during the boom years before the bust of this recession acquiring so much — and convincing ourselves that we needed every bit of it — that now that we’re forced to live with less, we’ve found we can. And that we prefer it.

Look in your closet right now and you probably have a few things with the tags still on them. (Guilty.) How many appliances in your kitchen have never actually touched food? How many jars of lotions and potions sit unused in the bathroom cabinet?  I don’t cook. Can barely scramble an egg. But I used to buy more food than I could actually eat. Mostly because an empty fridge seemed pitiful. Maybe even a little scary. Am I on the path to starvation? Not at all. I’m actually not really much of an eater. I’m that person that an all-you-can-eat affair is wasted on. And each week, I used to go through the ritual of throwing out food that had gone bad because I never got around to eating it. So I decided to stop wasting money on food.

Right now, if you go in my fridge, I’ve got butter, a couple of containers of yogurt, a bottle of wine, some left over pasta sauce (recipe from Shape magazine… I can’t cook but I can read), and one of those tiny single-serving ice creams. That will last through the end of the week with only the addition of maybe a box of crackers and some spaghetti to go with the sauce. I laugh sometimes at the emptiness of the refrigerator. And some people do think it’s a little pitiful.

In Altucher’s case, we’re talking about big things like furniture, gadgets, even a home. I live in a New York City apartment, so we’re forced to be careful with what we gather. But spring cleaning time is upon us and maybe you can take some of that stuff in the corners and extra closets and have a yard sale. You can use that money for something you really need. Or a new hobby, which is more fulfilling than stuff.

If you could right now do away with something to simplify your life, what would it be?

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Read any blog, check any fashion site and you will almost always see someone say, “If I could just rock the Halle ____.”

Well, get ready because there is a chance you may be able to get a piece of Halle Berry in your closet.

According to EURweb, the actress will soon be coming out with her own shoe line. Berry will be working with Germain retailer Deichmann Shoes to release some shoes in line with what the Cover Girl would rock on her feet.

The line, “5th Avenue by Halle Berry” are described as being fashionable yet comfortable shoes bound to fit the lifestyles of all women (soccer moms, working moms, corporate women, fashion savvy women, etc…).

Halle, being a fashionable, busy and working mom, knows that there are often two things really important to women: their hair their shoes.

“Women have always loved shoes. It’s like if your hair is not right and your shoes are not right, the woman is not right. If both of them are right, you’re pretty much OK”

5th Avenue by Halle Berry will consist of 40 limited edition designs and will starting being available by the end of the month.

Another upside? The shoes will start at $60. Now, we don’t know what those shoes will look like but with only 40 pairs, the prices likely won’t get too far out of hand if you see a pair you like.

The possible down side? The shoes are only being released in the UK. There’s been no word from Deichmann Shoes as to whether or not they’ll be available to order online and ship to the United States.  If not, I guess we’ll just be looking at pictures online.

Good for Halle. This sounds like it was possibly something really fun for her to do!

Would you buy a pair if you saw some you liked?

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Maybe African-Americans in Hollywood are slowly learning that if no one will give us the “green light” for programming we’d like to see, we have to start doing it for ourselves.

Enter Alchemy Networks. The new channel which joined forces with YouTube in December, was founded by media veteran Peter Griffith and will center around urban lifestyle and celebrity entertainment. It will also feature original programming.

Griffith told Lee Bailey of EURweb that they’re not interested in being the biggest channel but instead, they want to be the best within every market they target. In fact, they didn’t just “sign on” with YouTube when they came to the table with their ideas. Griffith, along with his partners Alvin Williams, Anthony Maddox ad Xothil Arkin, came up with their own plan, took it back to YouTube and hoped they were still on board:

“What we told them was ‘We’re not the same.’ Let us come back to them and tell what we thought was the best way to approach this community,” he recalled. “And we came to them and said ‘Look. What we’d like to do is develop not just one channel, but several channels that target different demographics of the African-American community.”

Luckily, YouTube jumped aboard. So far, they have two premium channels: Kaleidoscope, which targets 18-34 year olds with a focus on music, gossip and entertainment as well as FWD, launching this month, which targets 25-54 year olds with a focus on the same but also including beauty and fashion.

Kandi Burruss is the first celebrity to sign on with the network. Her new show, Kandi & Friends, will debut later this month. There’s been no word if it’ll be similar to her own show Kandi Koated Nights but it will feature some of her celebrity friends.

Alchemy, to date, boasts one million views per week and has 900,000 subscribers.

Hopefully, with the formation of Alchemy Networks and other independent online shows, we will see more programming that we’ve longed for. Over time, who knows? It might even filter onto actual television stations.

Will you check out Alchemy channels on YouTube?

Rex Features via AP Images

Once upon a time (today included), there was a Queen Bey who reigned unchallenged over every facet of the pop star kingdom. Her unparalleled commitment to outperforming the lesser royals allowed her to outshine them all. Except in one dark area. Being larger than life alienated her from the masses.

Always looking to improve, Queen Bey set her sights on the Web. Other starlets had used social media to their advantage. Surely the Queen could as well. She launched a website! And a Tumblr! Sprinkling out glimpses of her life for the masses to consume, artistic candid photos and handwritten open letters to those that inspired her. Everyone ate it up… for the most part. Some complained. The Queen was showing more of herself, but she wasn’t really telling us anything about who she was.

Bolstered by the delight of fans or the criticism of detractors, Queen Bey decided to take her online presence a step further. She launched The Beyhive blog on Tuesday. She billed it as “my way of showing all the inspiring things I come across every single day… through my eyes.”

Here’s Where the Fairy Tale Gets Real…

Beyoncé’s latest endeavor satisfies the minimum qualifications to be called a blog. The Beyhive is “a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links” (Marketing Terms). The blog features: photo links to the star’s latest cultural and artistic finds, a collection of the notes she writes to newsmakers (previously found in the News section), street style photographed by her stylist, and an archive of fan art. All listed in chronological order.

It’s cute. But she could have just made a Pinterest board.

Let’s look at what other celebrities are doing with lifestyle blogs:

• Goop, launched by Knowles-Carter clique member Gwyneth Paltrow, features interviews as well as editorial heavy features on products, destinations, recipes, and more.
• Little Monsters, the brainchild of the only other performer allowed to make eye contact with the Queen, Lady Gaga, is a full-fledged social network for fans of the provocateur.
• Life & Times, spearheaded by husband to Beyoncé’, Jay-Z, is a full-scale online publication that runs branded video, op-eds, and accompanies all its images with at least a paragraph of text.

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Every New Year many people make resolutions. But instead of focusing on the future, reflect on the past in order to make changes. According to Forbes, making a self audit of your life and career in the past year can give you a real clue as to the areas you need to change or develop.

The magazine takes a look at “career and life areas to focus on for the new year.” We have run through five of them.

 1)      Your morning routine. What didn’t you do last year in the morning that you wished you had? Was it exercise, planning your day, having a family breakfast, or quiet alone time? Make sure to do it this year.

2)      Your evening routine. Don’t repeat bad and stressful habits from 2012. “If you normally come home from work frazzled, develop a new routine. You might stop at the gym, read or listen to a different genre during your commute, or spend a few minutes alone before checking mail, jumping into dinner preparation, or catching up with the family,” writes Forbes.

3)      Your information diet. What kind of information are you digesting daily? Just like your food intake, your information intake can affect your mood. “Be deliberate about what gets your attention, and unsubscribe/cancel the rest,” says Forbes of magazine and newsletter subscriptions and your daily media diet.

4)      Your online activity. How much time do you spend online? Have you become a member of every social network just to jump on the bandwagon? Forbes suggests keeping only the networks you use regularly and drop the others.

5)      Your network. Are you repeating the same social scene as least year? If it is a case of been there, done that, then branch out. “Prune your relationships,” suggests Forbes. “You can still be friendly with old connections, but you may want to build new connections or deepen other relationships.”

What are some of the habits you had in 2013 that you want to shed for the new year?

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If you’re lucky enough to be one of those “kids” who has a great relationship with his/her parents, lives at home and is stacking money to save for that dream home, then you definitely have the life! However, for most of us, being an adult and living at home doesn’t always make for an ideal living situation. Sure, there are situations were living at home with mom and dad is beneficial, even necessary. But if you’re over 25 years old and still sleeping in a twin size bed wondering what you’re doing with your life, here are some signs it’s time to raise up out of your parents’ house and find your own spot.

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1. You’re There For THEM

Some people stay at home longer than they want to because their parents expect them to stay there – either to keep them company or until they get married. Maybe this is something parents expect more from their daughters than their sons, but if you find that you’re there to help your parents deal with the “empty nest syndrome” rather than living on your own, it’s time to sit them down and have a talk. Explain to your parents that just because you’re moving out, it doesn’t mean you’ll never come around to check on them or that you’re going to become a heathen turning your studio apartment into a den of sin (even if that is what you’re planning on doing with it). While it’s admirable that your parents want you to stay home until you get married, moving from your parents’ house to your husband’s house might not be what you had in mind. Your parents are grown and while they may miss you, they’ll get over it if you move out. They should want you to be independent, not rely on them for the rest of your life.

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2. You Come Home Late – Often

If you’re moving back home after college graduation, it’s probably safe to say that you still like to party and hang out like you did back on campus. This means you’re used to coming home when you feel like it because there were no parents at home giving you a curfew. But now when you come home, you trip the alarm and wake up everyone in the house – and that’s if your parents aren’t already up waiting for you. Some of you may have folks that respect the fact that you’re no longer a child and have no problem with you coming home at all hours of the night. But if your parents think you’re being disrespectful by stumbling in at 3am every night, then you have to respect their house and find a place of your own so that you’re not disturbing anyone else.

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3. You’re the Babysitter

If you have a younger sibling who requires a babysitter, consider yourself that babysitter. Your parents will expect you to watch him or her – for free – and without complaint, which could dampen your plans on a Friday night. If you live at home, you’re the live-in nanny. But if you lived say, 30 minutes away, you might be able to weasel out of watching your younger sister because you can’t get there in time because of…traffic. Or it could be because you’re not home or because you’re grown, pay your own rent and are out doing what YOU want to do.

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4. The House is Crowded

Even if your parents don’t make you watch your younger siblings, there’s still a chance there’s always a house full with other family members. You can’t even invite your friends over because there’s no place for them to sit – so you’re all packed in the basement or the backyard because your house is too small to fit all these people. If you had your own place, you could spread out a little bit and relax. Even if you lived in a studio, it would be YOUR space – and no one has to be there but you.

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5. No Room For Your Stuff

Not only is it difficult to find space for you and your friends to hang out, you may not also have room for your personal things, especially if you’re sharing a room with someone. After 4 years of college, I managed to accumulate things and none of it fit into my mom’s house when I moved back home. Adults tend to buy things – electronics, clothes, shoes…stuff, and it may not fit into your room or parents’ basement. They also may not want you to clutter their home with your things and use it for storage so you’re limited to buying what fits in the confines of the four walls of your bedroom. If you find yourself longing for a new bedroom set, or a huge flat screen TV, then you should find your own apartment to put it in.

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6. No Privacy

If you suffer from any of the issues already mentioned, it is safe to say you probably have no room for privacy either. If you start dating someone, bringing them back to your “room” for some action probably isn’t so hot – not with mom and dad roaming around the house freely. So sex is pretty much out of the question unless you get busy at a hotel or the back seat of your car. You can’t even have a conversation on the phone without your younger brother ear hustling and you basically feel trapped because there’s nowhere to go to have a little “me” time. If this is you and you have a decent job, then you should have moved out yesterday.

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7. Rules

Depending on how old-school your folks are, living at home means following their rules. Whether this means coming in at a certain hour, not being able to stay out over-night, doing chores or anything else your parents require you to do while living under their roof, if their rules don’t sit well with you, then you may need to consider getting 2 or 3 jobs so that you can move out and save your sanity. After all, it istheir house and if you’re not paying rent, you really can’t tell them “no,” can you? Well, maybe you can, but they’d probably tell your grown behind to move out and pay your own rent and follow your own rules. Can’t say that I blame them. Get your own spot.

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8. You’re a Slob

Speaking of chores, if you’re a slob, then living at home with you is probably a nightmare. While I’d hope that one would be clean and neat even while living on his own, you don’t HAVE to wash dishes in your own place if you don’t want to. When you live alone, you don’t have to do laundry for a month if you don’t feel like it, and you can leave your clothes all over the place and no one can say boo about it. Again, I’m not saying being a slob is cute, but if you’re tired of your mom nagging you to pick up your socks or to move your shoes out of her way, then get your own place and be lazy and sloppy to your heart’s content. Just make sure to clean up before company comes over.

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9. You’re 30+ Years Old

Enough said. At some point, you just have to become an adult and know what it’s like to be responsible for yourself. This means paying rent or a mortgage. Again, if you live in an old-fashioned household where the expectation is to stay at home until you’re married, and you’re cool with that, then rock out. Or maybe you have the coolest parents on the planet where living at home is actually a pleasurable experience. But living on your own can also teach you to be more responsible, establish credit and can allow you to have a certain level of freedom that you can enjoy before you think about setting down with a family of your own (if that’s what you’d like). If you’re living at home to save money or because you need to take care of an ailing parent, the recession hit you hard or any other reason that has nothing to do with you simply being a leach – then so be it. But if any of the previous scenarios has you pulling your hair out, then begin your search for a new pad and sign a lease. It’s time.

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A quote I’ve been familiar with since I was a child was “The only thing worse about losing an argument is winning one.”  I mean, let’s be honest, that’s hard to not only hear but to accept as truth.  Sometimes you’re going about your own business and a person who is looking to prove themselves might try to purposely provoke you.  You can either attempt to put them in their place, but usually that just makes you sink lower.  Or, you can ignore it, let them act a fool, but sometimes that makes you feel lower.  So what should you do?  Validate it, or ignore it?

I was a Sociology minor in college and one thing that we studied was the portrayal of African Americans.  Now, to add on to the discussion of whether Black people are constant threats to society, a correlation that I made was that people have a tendency to want to prove their agency.  In a time where we (black people) are at the bottom of society’s ladder, and besides having a black president, some black people still feel as though we are constantly looked down upon and always losing. It makes you think, “Are these people resorting to acting out to have just any small victory to cling to?”  Feeling helpless in a society that disposes them, carrying the burden of responsibility we all have that every single action we make is a representation of a total race, and feeling like no matter what you do, you’re seen as lower?  So, instead of trying to take the high road, some say “eff it,” and attempt to win these petty fights in an effort to feel like we’re succeeding.  To somehow prove to themselves that “I can win something,” whether it’s an argument, spitting match, or fight.

So you have the people who are looking for an easy win anywhere they can, and then you have the people who have seemed to lose their social graces by spending too much time trolling on internet sites.  Some of these people are so accustomed to being internet thugs and gangsters, saying what they want behind the protection of a screen, they forget that in face to face interaction, you can get it.  These things, mixed together, are creating a mixture of rash behavior and stupidity that is being documented through camera phones, Youtube and Worldstar Hip Hop.

The first time I truly thought about this was after the Cleveland bus driver fiasco.  While everyone was debating if the punch was warranted or not, I always wondered, why was he even arguing with the girl in the first place?  The camera comes on and they’re both insulting each other.  All I could think was, “If just one of them would have stopped talking…”  But I feel like we’re living in a time now where it’s encouraged to put people in their places.  Someone wants to say something out of pocket to you?  ”Oh, you think you know who you are, but I’m about to show you who I am!”  We see this type of behavior validated through the reality television shows that we watch.  A look turns into words.  Words turn into insults, and insults turn into violent action, and people are validated by it.

Now, let’s go to the Baltimore bus driving incident.  Since recording happened while the fight was in motion, the viewers have helped them create the full picture by the comments after the scuffle is finally broken up.  From the comments, the riders seem to think that the bus driver was wrong for fighting the teen and when confronting the bus driver about it, the bus driver replied, “It’s not about that, it’s about respect.”   So what you’re telling me is that when she began to act a fool, you couldn’t ignore it?  You had to get out of your seat to put her in her place for disrespecting you?  Until more information comes out about how things started, I’ll hold my tongue, but if those punches were thrown out of the fact that you wanted to teach the girl about “respect,” did you really win?

Now I’m not going to tell you how to live your own personal lives, but I’m saying all of this because I love you (even though I don’t know you) and personally know what can happen when you’re trying to prove yourself.  I’ve had two cousins within the last four years who decided to validate someone’s crazy behavior.  The end result? One cousin was shot in the head in a crowd full of people and the other got stabbed, again, in a crowd full of people.  The people who were egging them on to prove their point are still alive today.  My cousins, who wanted to show off, aren’t.

Just realize that consequences come when you decide to validate stupidity.  You might be rewarded a few extra Tfollowers, and have your name gain weight in the street but at the end, all the examples that we’ve seen recently of people validating foolishness have led to arrests, sentencings, firings and deaths.

So really, when you find yourself so consumed about wanting to win an argument, consider that the key to success is ignoring it.  Consider letting the ignorant person find their own validation with someone else and don’t risk losing the amazing things you have in store for yourself over a few words.  It’s not worth it.

While you ignore foolishness, you should validate Kendra Koger’s twitter account @kkoger.

Image: Shutterstock, Jeff Cleveland

It isn’t a myth that black youth are being left behind. It is a reality and a new study, “One in Seven: Ranking Youth Disconnection in the 25 Largest Metro Areas,” has the evidence. The study looked at the number of youth who are disconnected in America. We aren’t talking hi-tech disconnected, but socially disconnected. The government defines a disconnected youth as one who is not in school or working.

“One in Seven” found that youth disconnection is highest in the largest metro areas of the U.S., meaning that African-American teens are the most impacted. According to “One in Seven,”  5.8 million young adults or one in seven young adults, ages 16  to 24, are socially adrift.  The study was conducted by social scientist Sarah Burd Sharps, who said in a press release for the study she co-authored with Kristen Lewis, “One in Seven is a wake-up call to this country. Disconnection can affect everything from earnings and financial independence to physical and mental health, and even marital prospects.”

AOL reports, that the study discovered “African Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 have the highest rate of youth disconnection at 22.5 percent, a figure that holds significant monetary implications beyond any one racial or ethnic group. Last year alone, youth disconnection cost taxpayers $93.7 billion in government support and lost tax revenue.”

The study didn’t just leave it at presenting the statistics; it also gave recommendations for stopping youth disconnection. It suggests providing  “meaningful support and guidance both to young people aiming for a four-year bachelor’s degree and to those whose interests and career aspirations would be better served by relevant, high-quality career and technical education certificates and associate’s degrees.”  Lewis concluded in the press release, “In today’s economy, everyone needs some education beyond high school, but as a society, we need to rethink the ‘college-for-all’ mantra that devalues and stigmatizes career and technical education. Instead, we should provide robust pathways to postsecondary certificates or associate degree programs for those who choose this route.”

More on Madame Noire Business!

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• Vogue’s First Fashion Week In Africa Highlights Renewed Interest in the Continent

You just got your hair did, you’ve put on your cute little dress, and your wearing those hot heels that give you legs for days. Yup, you’re going on a first date.  You can just picture it now, some fine gentleman takes you out for the night, sweeps you off your feet and leaves you breathless by the end. So…what happens when things don’t go quite as planned? Do you hold on in the hopes that your fantasy will come true by the end of the night? Or do you exit stage left just as quickly as you came in? Here are some signs that your date is going downhill fast and it’s time to abandon ship!

He Takes You To A Bad Venue

There’s nothing worse than arriving at an unappealing location for your first date. Not only are you about to spend a few hours with a stranger, but you have to do it at one of the most boring/uncomfortable places possible. Or even worse, one of the loudest most seedy joints around (the kind that look like a fight could break out at any minute). This may also be a sign that you and your date do not share similar interests. Either suggest a different location quickly or get ready for a very long night.