Yvette Nicole Brown stole the show on Community back in the day alongside Joel McHale. She played Shirley Bennett and went through an interesting character arc.

But, one of the main things people noticed about Shirley, or Brown, was her weight loss. Fans still ask about this transformation even though the show ended in 2015 and Brown has done many other projects.

So, why did she lose weight?

Yvette Nicole Brown Underwent Weight Loss to Control Diabetes

Diabetes runs in Brown's family. She was still on Community when she got diagnosed with it in 2013.

However, she was not a stranger to the disease. She knew people who had the illness and had been prediabetic herself for ten years.

But she never thought her condition would progress. "I had been prediabetic for probably 10 years, and for some reason I thought it would never become actual diabetes," she told Parade in 2016.

Yvette Nicole Brown underwent weight loss after her diabetes diagnosis.

Yvette Nicole Brown underwent weight loss after her diabetes diagnosis. (Photo: Yvette Nicole Brown/Instagram)

It was a wake-up call for her. Brown realized she had to make changes in her life to cope with the issue — Type 2 diabetes.

The actress then dealt with it the way she knew best — by having a laugh about it. "With everything in life, you have a choice to either go down the dark road or go down the light road, and I chose to go down the light road," she said.

She had a great support system around her. Even though she chose not to tell her Community castmates about the diagnosis until a few months later, they were supportive of her.

And her dentist also helped her find humor in her daily dealings with the disease. They had a fun relationship, as she alluded to during the interview.

After the diagnosis, she got her health back on track. She took care of her oral hygiene, drank lots of water, exercised, made better food choices, etc.

Because of all these improvements in her daily life, she lost noticeable weight and looked slimmer.

"When they tell you they're going to take your feet, you stop eating donuts," she joked about her weight loss and diagnosis in 2014.

Not only did she look fabulous, but she also felt that way. And her secret to being that was portion control.

But she has never been the one to care about numbers, except for one.

Yvette Nicole Brown Didn't Care about Weight Loss

Even though Brown had numbers and the figure to show for her transformative weight loss, she did not really care about any of those.

"That's very vanity focused," she said of caring about weight and clothing size during her interview with Vulture in 2017. "You know, "How small is your waist? How big is your butt?"'

Instead, she had a better number to focus on — her glucose level.

"I'm just trying to lose the diabetes," Brown admitted, saying she was never the Halle Berry type, and never tried to be.

Brown was never the one to hate her body or dislike being "chubby." Instead, she realized the only goal was to be healthy, and she wanted people to know that.

She still looks to be in great shape and is hopefully still kicking some diabetes butt.