Add, Don't Subtract
Improve your diet by adding good foods that crowd out the bad
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
Most diet advice is subtractive, cut carbs, cut gluten, cut sugar, which is stressful and prone to failure. This model flips it: focus on adding beneficial foods, and the less-healthy items get displaced naturally. If you snack on nuts and fruit you eat fewer protein bars and sweets; if you add plants you crowd out ultra-processed staples. Because gut health is fundamentally about feeding your bacteria more diverse fibre, the additive frame aligns with the biology and sidesteps the restriction-and-rebound cycle. It also protects mental well-being by removing the 'forbidden food' framing that fuels disordered eating. The mechanism is simple: more good in means less room for bad, achieved without willpower-heavy bans.
Origin
Shared by dietitian Sophie Medlin as a counter to restrictive diet culture. Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal.
Core principles
- 01Gut health is mostly about what you add, not what you remove
- 02Adding plants naturally displaces less-healthy foods
- 03Restriction breeds failure and a poor relationship with food
- 04Small additions compound into healthier patterns
How to run it
- 1
Flip the question
Before removing anything, ask what beneficial foods you could add to each meal or snack.
Pro tip Keep a mental shortlist of easy adds: seeds, nuts, extra veg, a piece of fruit.
- 2
Add to existing meals
Bolt extras onto what you already eat, seeds on a salad, lentils in a mince, a side of broccoli, rather than overhauling.
Pro tip An extra side of veg when eating out is an easy add.
- 3
Let displacement happen
As healthier options fill you up, they naturally reduce your intake of processed snacks and refined foods.
Pro tip Stock the accessible spots (desk, car) with the good stuff.
- 4
Drop the forbidden-food framing
Avoid strict bans; enjoy less-ideal foods occasionally without guilt so the pattern stays sustainable.
Pro tip When eating out, relax and enjoy it rather than policing every choice.
Watch out Restriction and guilt can spiral into disordered eating.
In the wild
Someone who grabs Smarties at every service station keeps a jar of trail mix and a few chocolate raisins in the car instead. They don't ban sweets outright; the nut mix simply becomes the easier, more satisfying option, and the processed snacking fades on its own while satiety improves.
→ Fewer processed snacks and steadier energy, achieved by adding rather than forbidding.
Common mistakes
Leading with bans
Starting from restriction triggers rebound and failure; the additive approach is more durable.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who repeatedly fail restrictive diets and want a sustainable, low-stress approach.
Not ideal for
Genuine medical eliminations (e.g. coeliac disease) where specific foods must be avoided.
From the transcript
“one of the nice things about gut health is really I'm talking to people adding things in ... as opposed to taking things away which…”
“when people add more plants in it displaces some of these less healthy things in their diet anyway”
From the episode
Heal Your Brain: How Your Gut Secretly Controls Your Brain Health - Dietitian Sophie Medlin
Dietitian Sophie Medlin