James Van Der Beek’s may not have won this year’s “Dancing With The Stars,” but he did dance away with another prize… rockhard abs!
Because who needs a Mirrorball Trophy when you have a sixpack?
In case you didn’t know, the “Dawson’s Creek” actor was on this past season of “Dancing With the Stars.”
He and his dancing partner Emma Slater tore up the stage while competing against other talented celebs.
This included Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown, comedian Kel Mitchell, and The Bachelorette’s Hannah Brown who ended up winning it all!
He made it all the way to the semi-finals before he and his partner were sadly eliminated.
This was shortly after Van Der Beek revealed that his wife had suffered a miscarriage.
He announced the tragic news during a video segment on the show.
“My wife Kimberly and I went through every expecting parent’s worst nightmare. We lost the baby,” he said.
“The little soul that we had expected to welcome into our family took a shortcut to whatever lies beyond.”
He continued: “You never know why these things happen, that’s what I’ve been telling my kids.”
“All you know is that it brings you closer together, it breaks you open, it opens your heart, it deepens your appreciation. It makes you more human.”
He and his wife currently have five kids together.
After losing the baby, Slater opened up to “People” about how James was doing under the circumstances.
“He needed the show,” she said.
“He said to me, ‘I need the show. I’m grateful to have an outlet and to have a form of physical expression and keep that engine to keep me going. I need to feel normal and not fall into the pit.’”
Along with the show being a great way to heal, the actor also got in the best shape of his life!
This past Wednesday, he shared exactly how dancing has transformed his body by posting a photo of his toned abs.
Here they are in all their ripped glory:
“Fight training vs. dancing…” he wrote in his caption, drawing a comparison between the two exercises.
“I’d been training in Muay Thai three days a week for about six months (for the next project I’m writing) when I hit pause to dance six hours a day. Now I can rumba,” he wrote.
Before the show, the actor’s main form of exercise was training heavily in Muay Thai, a form of martial arts.
His transformation left so many fans in awe:
His dancing partner was also so proud of him.
“Both cut but you can see dancing really defines everything. Especially when you worked as hard as you did! In every way you are a huge advocate for dance @vanderjames!!!” she wrote.
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When responding to a fan’s comment, James even shared what his diet was like on the show.
He said that he ate mainly vegan, with “lots of fruit, vegetables, lot of smoothies, salads.
“Not so much a diet … more like only wanting to eat what I knew would make me feel good under the workload.”
His Instagram post wasn’t the first time he spoke out about how dancing helped whip him into shape.
“I haven’t stepped on a scale, but my pants have gotten looser,” he said backstage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.
Before that interview with “People”, he had just finished a long training session with Slater.
We’re talking four and a half hours!
He continued: “I was training, I was fight-training for something for like six months,” he continued. “So I was in pretty good shape, but not dancing shape. It’s a whole other level.”
“I knew it was going to be hard. I was prepared for a really, really steep learning curve,” he added.
“It’s about what I expected. I had no illusions going in. I knew it’d be a lot of work. I knew it would be a ton of time. I just really wanted to do it.”
We hope the actor keeps dancing away because he looks amazing!
