Actress and activist Laverne Cox has become known for showing off her figure on Instagram. She's posted both swimsuit photos and videos of her dancing or modeling a new swimsuit. Cox recently posted another dancing video on Instagram from a recent vacation. She captioned the video, "There was something about being in Mexico that made me dance 24/7." Read on to see 5 ways Laverne Cox stays in shape and the photos that prove they work—and to get beach-ready yourself, don't miss these essential 30 Best-Ever Celebrity Bikini Photos!

Cox posts a lot of videos of her dancing on Instagram, and is open about her love and experience with dancing. Cox has dance experience and previously worked as a drag performer before making it as an actress. In this video, Cox is seen dancing in heels, and she captioned the post, "Oh I haven't been dancing and definitely not dancing in heels lately. It felt good this day to do a little two step. I definitely need to work my stamina back up and find my full groove again. I'm forever a work in progress. And you definitely need to swipe for that third slide. Shout out to @nicolescherzinger for the inspiration."  

df44d9eab23ea271ddde7545ae2c09ec

Cox loves to swim and posts a lot of photos and videos of herself enjoying time in the pool. Cox posted this reel of herself enjoying the pool with the caption, "Vacation's all I ever wanted." Cox revealed in The New York Times that she doesn't just swim on vacation. "I just moved into a condo, and we have a pool. It's one of my main reasons for moving here, so I can swim."

Cox revealed her diet in an interview with The New York Times. She says that she tries to eat healthy, and avoids some specific foods. She states, "Meat, sugar and dairy are all really bad for my skin. I avoid gluten."

In 2017, Cox revealed on Instagram that she was trying a vegan diet. "It's only been 12 weeks for me, but I feel so much better," she said at the time. However, she revealed in a New York Times piece the following year that she was no longer vegan. "I was vegan for four months last year, but then I did a food sensitivity blood work panel and found out I'm sensitive to soy. If you're vegan and can't eat soy, it gets real tricky." Cox later says that she has decided to adopt a pescatarian diet, and avoids gluten. "I started eating fish again. I'm basically a gluten-free pescatarian, and then I go in and out of sugar and carbs."

Cox is open about practicing self-love and acceptance. In a recent Instagram post, Cox revealed that her mental state hasn't always been great recently, that the pressures of social media are affecting her, and that she's working on herself. She wrote, "I have to practice feeling free. The shame, the self judgement, the perfectionism are so hardwired I have to practice freeing myself of those things and creating new wiring in my nervous system daily. I carefully curate what I post here and I am very particular about how I look. At a photoshoot yesterday I picked myself apart in vicious, brutal ways. I said these things jokingly on set out loud for the entire set to hear them. Even jokingly this negative picking myself apart took a toll on me." She continued, "It's important to note that I know I get messages and comments from all of you everyday telling me how beautiful I am. Thank you! Some days I'm able to receive it and truly believe you. Other days I just can't receive it. My therapist Jennifer Burton Flier recently said on my podcast that we are teflon for the positive and velcro for the negative. A day at a time all I can do is try to rewrite the story I'm telling myself so that a more resilient body replaces the shame and trauma body that's so deeply hardwired. I'm making progress. The fact that I had that aha moment in the car on the way home is a sign that my body is becoming more and more intolerant to abusive treatment. I wouldn't allow it from anyone else. That's progress. Now it's time to not allow it from myself, a day at a time."