The Work, first edition, on eating 50% all the time

Byron Katie’s The Work:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

I can’t regularly eat half of what I’ve been eating.

1. It’s probably not true - I can eat 50% of what I’ve been eating lately
2. I do know it can be true under certain conditions, none of which actually apply to my current life.
3. If I believe that I cannot eat 50%, then I’m happy and sad both. I get to still eat more. I can’t lose as fast as I’d like.
   The pictures I see include my plate piled high with food, messy, dripping, getting the furniture dirty. My clothes spotted with food stains because I eat so fast in order to get it all in.
   I see myself fatter than I need to be longer than I need to be.
   I see disappointment in not minding my food intake better (better = less)
   The thought first occurred to me when I ate to full after eating to 50%
   I hide from others when I am not eating the way I like. I feel less than they, especially the skinny ones.
   I have lived my life with a “need” to eat a lot, just to feed that belief.
   If I keep this belief, I get to keep eating, at the price of believing I’m eating too much.
4. If I didn’t believe that thought, I would be thin and not spending my time on eating issues. If I didn’t have this thought in my head, I would be free, at least as free as any average human being.

Turnaround: If I couldn’t eat past 50%. If I never ate past 50%. If I never felt like eating past 50%. I can stop at 50% on a regular basis.

1. It could be true. “I can stop…” is definitely true.
2. I can’t absolutely know it’s always true,  but I have proven it’s sometimes true.
3. When I think the thought “I can stop at 50% on a regular basis,” I feel wishfully doubtful. I see half-empty plates, lower food bills, more telling waiters it’s ok, I just wasn’t hungry, less compulsion to eat. I see more food tossed away, more room in my cabinets, more tea drunk, less hunger, clearer line between emotional hunger and physical hunger, more often physical hunger. I see days with little food because I’m simply not interested. I see more ability to motivate myself to other things.
   When I believe I can eat regularly to 50%, I think less about stress, inadequacy, and trying to measure up. I treat others more kindly because I’m not spending energy trying to “fix” my last “eat past full.” I treat others more directly because I’m not feeling guilty over food intake.
   If I believed I can eat regularly to 50% my whole life, then I have enjoyed things much more. I have eaten less and tasted more. I’ve had more time to reach out and develop myself in ways I want to go. I have faced my family history and come out with the same result.  This idea beings peace to me.
4. Without this thought, I would less of a person, less happy, less fulfilled. Sad.

The Work leaves me with a desire to do something. I wonder if that’s the objective.

What is the effect of arguing with reality, of arguing that I cannot regularly stop? It becomes self-fulfilling, of course.

Byron Katie says to let repetition of the work dig deep into the soul. This will cause change. When I really relax and let the idea of 50% sink in, I see that it’s possible. I feel full, yet peaceful. I visualize myself fixing half of what I normally fix.

How will I enable 50%? By relaxing before a meal, eating a snack to take the edge off, by being in the question.