(Photo: John Ricard/BET)

Elle Varner has been flaunting a noticeably slimmer figure these days so BET.com sat down with the singer to chat about her weight loss and how much she's loving her new toned body.

"When I went to college I definitely gained the freshman 15 and then some. I was heavy growing up, especially in middle school and high school, and I had lost some weight and gained it back," Varner said. "It was around my junior year when I started educating myself on vegetables and different greens and I stopped eating so much meat and I really started working out."

The trick, she said, was finding some way to make working out enjoyable so that she would stick to it. Luckily, her home in New York City served as the perfect backdrop for jogs around town.

"You can run down the West Side Highway or the Brooklyn Bridge and not just be sitting on a treadmill because I hate the gym. I hate being on the treadmill, but I do love running and seeing the sights and that's kind of how I discovered New York as well," Varner said. "So getting in that habit and just being more active and really committed to change, too. Everyone knows how to lose weight, we all know how, but we don't always commit to it."

She's now about 30 pounds lighter than she was when she wrote her hit "So Fly" and is loving the fact that she has a waist and shape that she can show off in high-waisted pants. But Varner not only did it for the better body she's rocking these days, but also for health reasons. Because her family's medical history is peppered with diabetes and heart disease, her risk for developing these issues are greater and she says she didn't want to go down that path herself.

"I never imagined I could do a push up or run a mile," Varner said. "The healthier I was, I felt like a better me and it became a lifestyle choice and not a thing of vanity. Sometimes I'm not always on it, but I am committed to a healthier lifestyle."

"It's sad no matter how we look or what size we are, we always want to change one more thing. I stopped fixating on things," she adds. "I try not to let those things exist to me. The more confident you are about yourself, the better decisions you make. You begin to just make choices that make you feel good."

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