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"  Photo: Getty Instagram is on a diet. Food porn has gone paleo. Excuse the &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot; terminology, but as &amp;quot;bikini season&amp;quot; fast approaches the Valencia-filtered bacon-wrapped food pics that once flooded your feed are being swapped out for crisp bird&amp;#039;s eye shots of steamed salmon and lettuce wrapped turkey burgers\u2014not a carb in sight. The diet du jour of the social media set is Whole30, an extremely strict, high protein, no grain regimen that spans 30 days with no slip-ups, or else. Created in 2009, the Whole30 program is nothing new, but if hashtags are any indicator, the Paleo diet&amp;#039;s shorter, more in-your-face cousin is having a major moment.  So what&amp;#039;s the deal? Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, the diet&amp;#039;s founders and authors of the New York Times bestseller It Starts with Food, believe eating sugar, grains, dairy, and legumes affect not just your weight, but also your energy and stress levels. Stripping them from your diet completely for 30 straight days will &amp;quot;reset&amp;quot; your body on all counts. Related: The Biggest Loser: Battle of the Fad Diets Okay, makes sense. But the real kicker is if you mess up (a splash of milk in your coffee, a bite of your friend&amp;#039;s birthday cake, even a sneaky lentil) you have to start over from day one. &amp;quot;This isn&amp;#039;t us playing the tough guy. This is a fact, born of education and experience. You need such a small amount of any of these inflammatory foods to break the healing cycle,&amp;quot; explains the Whole30 website.  Nutritionist Keri Glassman thinks there are many benefits to this type of diet and usually recommends her clients follow a &amp;quot;Paleo Plus&amp;quot; plan (plus means a few healthy grains like millet and bulgar) with no sugar, no processed foods, lots of vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats. But she frowns upon the restrictive nature of the Whole30. &amp;quot;I like people to be strict for four to seven days to give them a jump-start and reset the behaviors,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But 30 days is a long time and can be very restrictive, especially if you have to start over.&amp;quot;   Photos: Instagram Such rigid rules may cause people who fall off to binge before they get back on the Whole30 wagon. Glassman also takes issue with prohibiting any dairy or legumes, which consist of beans, peas, chickpeas, peanuts, tofu, tempeh, and more. &amp;quot;Legumes provide a really great way to get in vegetarian meals,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Also, I don&amp;#039;t think you should drink milk all day, but there&amp;#039;s a really good place for Greek yogurt.&amp;quot;  On the Whole30 program you can eat meat, nuts, seeds, seafood, eggs, as many vegetables as you want, and some fruit. Fitness and food coach Liz Barnet thinks the Whole30 diet is a great plan for people who&amp;#039;ve been going out, eating, and drinking a lot and want a fresh start. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a plan to help you stay focused,&amp;quot; she says. Barnet has completed the Whole30 once and did a shortened two-week version before a recent wedding during which she lost eight pounds. She says it&amp;#039;s not just about slimming down though, but using the restrictions to actually change the way you think about food.  &amp;quot;The Whole30 is restrictive because you&amp;#039;re cutting out a lot of foods, but I try to focus on what you can have,&amp;quot; says Barnet. &amp;quot;You think of new ways to cook certain foods that you&amp;#039;re unfamiliar with. Maybe you&amp;#039;ve not had that many brussels sprouts before, so looking up as many different ways you can make them delicious is a good way to get through it.&amp;quot;  Related: The Scary News About the Paleo Diet But new ways to prepare things does not mean you&amp;#039;re allowed any of those Paleo pancakes. Disguising your Whole30-approved ingredients in flourless brownies or coconut milk ice cream is strictly prohibited. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t try to replicate junk food during your 30 days! That misses the point of the Whole30 entirely,&amp;quot; the website cautions.  So the idea is to learn new and healthy ways to prepare your food that you will continue to use post-diet. After completing a juice cleanse people often go straight to a burger and back to their old habits, but possibly not with the Whole30. &amp;quot;With the length of time, you&amp;#039;ll learn enough cooking techniques (or ordering techniques) and recipes, so you feel confident carrying that on after. Also, you won&amp;#039;t crave those other foods as much,&amp;quot; says Barnet.  Since its inception, Whole30 has been about community, with blogs, forums, seminars, and workshops all dedicated to helping people on the program connect and support one another. So it makes perfect sense that it has found a network amongst the selfies and cat photos of Instagram, with people documenting what they ate and cooked with a new hashtag marking each day. And if you can&amp;#039;t have any cookies, maybe getting a bunch of likes is the next best thing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/news/a14932/whole-30-diet/>