Click play below for Anu's live performance of Aretha Franklin classic Natural Woman.

The pop star recently dropped from a size 18 to size 8, losing 28 centimetres from her waist, after appearing in a reality weight loss show “Excess Baggage”.

“I’d given up on myself,” Anu yesterday told a group of Albury residents aspiring to lose weight..

“I stopped living my life. I was just waiting around for the next gig, and I put myself last,”.

When she was approached by the producers of “Excess Baggage”, Anu said she was originally defensive and embarrassed, joking that viewers would look at her and think “Christine Anu has swallowed My Island Home.”

But since she has lost the weight she realised that the depression she had been feeling wasn’t normal, and wouldn’t have gone away by itself.

Now the singer is an idol for competitors in a the inaugural State Knockout Challenge, which pits 13 teams from Aboriginal communities against each other in a battle to lose kilograms.

Though Anu said it was easier her to lose weight in an intensive television competition, she remains trim and active after the show, which was a ratings disaster for Channel 9.

She the key to her ongoing weight-loss success was remaining active - and for her that’s about keeping fit without a gym membership.

When she parks her car she’ll park it some way away from her destination, and walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift.

After entertaining a crowd at a free concert at the Albury-Wodonga Aboriginal Health Service yesterday, Anu had quiet yarn to the local group doing their best to change their eating and exercising habits.

Six weeks into the 16 week program the 25 contestants had lost a combined 33 kilograms, but are aiming for an ambitious total of 125 kilograms by August 31.

That’s five kilograms each.

The winner of NSW Health program will receive a $70,000 community grant to promote local lifestyles in the area.