A diet for energy and good health

Clare and Kim Shepherd definitely practise what they preach. The pair are the mother and daughter team behind a new healthy living programme called, appropriately New Life Nutrition.

The ethos behind the business is inspired by Clare’s elder daughter, Sam, who died from leukaemia when she was just 21.

“I had two choices after Sam died. To stay in the dark place I was in. Or look to the future and be positive and start a new life and that is where the New Life Nutrition came from.”

Clare first became interested in nutrition after she suffered a chronic health condition after the birth of her daughter Kim.

“I went backwards and forwards between doctors who just couldn’t decide what was wrong with me. I was in constant pain and was bringing up two small children”

But it was while talking about her symptoms to a friend that she suggested Clare visit an endocrinologist.

“I was getting disillusioned with conventional medicine which seems to have no answers for me. I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands”

The endocrinologist said Clare was going through the early menopause, she was only 39, and had severe endometriosis.

She decided to have a full hysterectomy. “That was a turning point,” recalls Clare, now 58. “I decided to take my health into my own hands.”

She trained at the International Institute of Reflexology and started her own successful health practice,  qualifying as a Nutritional Therapist in 2003 .

But in 2004 Sam was diagnosed with leukaemia aged 19.  In and out of hospital over a period of 18 months, she rarely ate hospital food, Clare prepared meals at home and took them in for her.

“They do their best in hospitals but they have so little money to spend on each patient. Giving her some control over what she ate really helped Sam’s emotional and mental state. She had no say over anything else.”

Both Clare and Kim, 25, believe that the nutritional alkaline-rich meals also helped prolong Sam’s life “The doctors didn’t expect her to live very long at all but in the end we had an extra 18 months with her”. Clare explains that alkaline-rich foods, such as fresh fruit and veg, beans and pulses – anything you can pick or grow – helps restore the body’s balance.

“Too much acid and our cells cannot thrive and be happy.”

It was also during Sam’s illness that the family got involved with the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“Sam wouldn’t normally say boo to a goose, but after being treated in the teenage unit at Weston Park, compared to being treated in an adult ward at the Hallamshire, she told her consultant that was what the Hallamshire needed.”

Sam got the ball rolling, helping to organise a number of fund-raising events, but it wasn’t until after her death that the family wanted to complete her mission.

Kim made a promotional film packed full of local celebrities, including Nick Clegg, that was then debuted on ITV news. The combined efforts of all the fundraising helped raise more than £100,000 for the ward, which is now up and functioning in conjunction with the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“It helped to give us a focus and also to know what we had achieved what Sam set out to do.”

But after Sam’s death, both Clare and Kim admit to some dark times as the family became consumed by their own grief.

“A day came when I was taking the dog for a walk. I looked behind me and everything was dark and overgrown and I looked forward and everything was light and inviting, and I realised that I had to move on.”

In those three years Clare’s passion for nutrition had taken a back seat and her health had suffered.

“Kim was the catalyst for my decision to apply all the nutrition and lifestyle knowledge I had to return myself to optimum health.

“Our relationship had suffered we were each so wrapped up in our own grief that we becamse unaware of what was happening around us.

“My goal was to be there for her, she deserved no less,” says Clare, from Sheffield.

“This was the seed for establishing New Life Nutrition, the start of my new life, giving me the opportunity to reach out to individuals through one to one consultations, educating, encouraging and empowering them to take control of their own health.” Clare also runs courses.

But she wanted to spread her knowledge further and that is where Kim comes in.

“As a teenager I never really thought much about nutrition. I ate and drank all the wrong things. But I started to suffer with my health, especailly kidney problems and I had to give up alcohol and start taking my health seriously, which made me a bit of an odd one out at university.”

It was during Sam’s illness that Kim says she saw the real power of healthy eating. “It was what mum’s meals did for her mentally and emotionally as well as physically. It is all about being positive and looking forward not back.

“We do talk about Sam as really she was the catalyst for all this, but we don’t dwell on the negative things.”

After her degree Sam worked in marketing, but her interest in nutrition and alternative health continued.

It was while on a course run by motivational speaker Tony Robbins that Kim and Clare decided the time was right to work together.

“I wanted to spread my knowledge further and educate people. We came up with the New Life Programme,” says Clare.

“It just seemed right that Kim and I should do it together.” The four-week programme, which launches this weekend, looks at all areas of nutrition, health, emotional and physical fitness.”
Kim who is studying acupuncture and hopes to travel the world with it says: “It really is a plan for a new life.”