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It's free! On this episode of The Daily Dollip, we're chatting about the statement Never Complain, Never Explain. What has this got to do with your food choices? Well, in my opinion, lots.
Let's talk about it. It's Dollip Time. Hey, hey, my name's Kate. I'm a registered nutritionist, and after 20 years in the field of nutrition, I'm tired of seeing people stressed about eating and confused about where to start.
And so, I'm changing the conversation. You deserve to feel confident in your food choices and empower it to maximize your health. Every weekday will dull up an episode into your feed, covering everything from busting nutrition myths, practical food ideas, my thoughts on trending topics, and habits for a healthy life. My promise to you, it will always be sustainable, realistic, restriction-free, and strictly no-woo.
Only good science translated into easy, everyday advice. Let's do this. Welcome back to The Daily Dollip podcast, everyone. So, as you know, we're talking about workplace nutrition this week.
And also, as I've talked about on the show before, my colleague, Claire Walski, who is the practice manager of the Healthy Eating Clinic, which is my business in Canberra. She is the bomb diggity. I love her with all my heart. And she says this thing that I honestly love that I want to talk about on the show today, and she's actually says it sometimes in the context of healthy food choices and your lifestyle at work, which is Never Complain, Never Explain.
And she's said it so many times over the years I've worked with her for over a decade now. And it has some really cool principles. And so while pulling this topic together for the whole week, I've actually been referencing an article that Claire has written on workplace nutrition. And I've been using bits and pieces of it all week in the podcast.
And so her very last point in the article was this statement Never Complain, Never Explain. And I'll share what she talks about in a second. But I just wanted to dive into this statement just more broadly, because I think there's some really cool principles for life in it. As have you guys heard of this before, you can Google it, but I did a quick Google.
And Google's little AI summary says this, Never Complain, Never Explain is a phrase meaning to avoid publicly complaining about issues or attempting to justify your actions, often associated with maintaining a dignified and reserved demeanor, particularly attributed to the British royal family, and believed to have originated with British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Essentially, the concept is let your actions speak for themselves rather than voicing grievances or providing explanations. And so I actually really like this a lot. Now, someone who is a big communicator, I do think communicating context, communicating boundaries, communicating the why behind things is actually a really key part of good communication.
But there comes a point where sometimes we're just talking too much, like voicing our grievances, winching and complaining and constantly providing an explanation for why we did what we did, when oftentimes we should just let our actions speak for themselves, and we can show people a lot about who our values, what we value and who we are as people on the inside by our actions and what we do. And I think for me the statement talks to, sometimes we can waste a whole lot of mental energy here on the winching on the complaining of why we can't and why this is too hard and this and that. And often complaining is when it's pointing out and showing us the elements of our life so that feel out of our control. And that can be a really frustrating place to stay and to constantly go back to, because you can't do anything about things that are out of your control.
And then if we're constantly justifying our actions, particularly actions that we're feeling unhappy with, that's a really good indication that we're not living in line with our values if we're constantly trying to justify ourselves and that what can be a great way to get ourselves out of that is to actually just start acting in line with our values and being cool with that. And I guess coming back to the fact that we have choices. So what has this got to do with food? I'll talk about this in a second.
But I do just want to have just a small accountability moment with my producer of this show, Dave Matthews from Podspot. He's a good egg. And he helps me a lot. He catches up with me fortnightly.
We talk about the show and what we can do and things like that. And I have winched and complained to him pretty much every time we've caught up. It's been a whole thing. I've been literally talking about all the reasons why I can't do all the things he suggested, why it's really hard to come up with content and blah, blah, blah, and why I'm so tired.
And I need a wife to help me look after my personal life. I've literally just focused my energy in these conversations on all the things I can't control and complain about them and then justified the fact that I haven't done the things that would help the podcast grow and that kind of thing. And it just was really cool because when I was researching this topic and putting these episodes together and I found this statement from Claire in her article, I was just like, oh man, it's time to be accountable, Kate. And never complain and never explain and just actually take some stuff on board of what he's saying to me.
And then just do what needs to be done within the realms of what I can do and let my actions speak. And that's that's that. And I just feel really convicted in that moment about the fact that I've wasted a lot of mental energy on a bit of whinging. And that's not to say that complaining doesn't have its place, but I think use it as a way of identifying areas that are frustrating you that you can't control, right, or helping you identify areas that you can control.
And then when you're over justifying your actions, let that show you where you're kind of conflicting with your values. So don't let it be something that goes on and on and on and on and complain and complain. Anyway, I'm mostly talking to myself about this guys. I'm sure you guys never do this.
This is just a meeting. But Dave, I'm not going to win tonight meetings anymore. All right. Never complain.
Never explain that to me. So let's talk about what this means. I mean, you do it in a workplace perspective because that's what we've been talking about this week. And I do hope that the content this week has been really helping you.
But Claire said this in her article. Eating in social situations is fraught with discussions about our food choices. And while it's great to connect with our colleagues over shared food, sometimes it can be a bit of a minefield of options, opinions and pressure to eat. And so if we do take a page out of Her Majesty's playbook and the British royal family, and we can just ditch the desire to tell people why you're making the choice that you're making healthy or unhealthy.
Never complain. Never explain. You are doing you. You are fully in control of your food choices and you are entitled to choose whatever it is that you want to eat.
And it is nobody else's business. You're not trying to wage a crusade against unhealthy eating. You don't know anyone an explanation as to why you're saying no. Thank you to a Tim Tam.
Right. You also don't know an explanation to somebody as to why I've decided to eat the cake or why you want to eat that packet of chips. Absolutely not. You don't have to explain that.
That is absolutely your choice, whatever food choice you make. Right. Whether it's deemed healthy or unhealthy. It doesn't actually matter.
So I think what sometimes can happen is that in a situation of eating is that, you know, whatever we're eating, maybe we've been offered a Tim Tam and we say no. Thank you. And the person is like, Oh, so we follow it up and be like, Oh, well, I'm trying to be good. Or I don't really like a Tim Tam or it upsets my stomach.
It's actually personally like it's reasonable, perfectly reasonable for you to just be like, No, thank you don't want one. Right. Or maybe you are eating a Tim Tam and someone's like, I thought you weren't supposed to be eating that. Oh, well, I've been really good today.
And I just really needed that. And we start to make excuses to why we are, you know, no, you don't have to explain it. You don't have to explain it. You don't have to explain it to yourself.
You don't have to explain it to someone else. I think this is a really nice way of like getting ourselves out of the weeds with our food decisions and just starting to own them a little bit more. And at the end of the day, this is part of, I think, setting boundaries at work with the way that we're speaking about food and making our food choices that we can do a pleasant smile and no, thank you. I don't want to eat that or a pleasant smile.
And this is my food choice. This is my choice. And not any of your business. Why are you eating that?
Because I chose to eat it and end up the story. And if some people might press a little more and pile a little more pressure or like, Are you sure or why not? Are you sure that's what you want to be doing right? We just keep calm and carry on not explaining and just feel confident in your own choices.
And if you're not feeling comfortable and confident in your own choices and you're finding that that is full of confusion, food stress, food guilt, shame and it's actually all a mess in your head because you're constantly having to explain it to yourself as well as other people, then I would suggest making some time to talk to someone one on one and unpacking all of this would be a fabulous place to start to start building a healthier relationship with food and your body and being able to feel confident in making a rational food decision long term. So what do you think? What do you think about the statement? Never complain.
Never explain. Do you like it? Do you feel like this is a helpful concept? I'd really, really love to know.
I think it's a really cool thing to ponder and think about. Mmm. Jump onto my socials, let me know. You can also jump into the Ayla Health Community Group on Facebook.
Have a chat about it. Otherwise, team that is it for today's episode. We'll catch you next time. The Daily Dollar Podcast is proudly brought to you by Ayla Health.
Build food confidence and learn how to choose foods that are right for you and your body. Download the app today and build habits that last. As always, you can find out more about our chat in the show notes. You can also join the conversation over in the Ayla Health Community Group on Facebook.
We'd love to see you there. If you've got a topic you'd love to hear us chat about on the Daily Dollar, please let us know. Email us at hello at aylahealth.com.au or you can send us a message on Instagram. Until next time.