Self-esteem is a hard concept to pin down, but basically it has to do with the way you perceive and experience yourself and your life. It shows through in the attitudes, beliefs, and opinions you have about yourself; it affects all aspects of your life, including what you think, how you act and feel, and how you interact with other people.

If you have good self-esteem, you believe in yourself and have confidence in your ability to think and make good decisions. You also value yourself and know that you are valuable to others. This shows in the way you take care of yourself and those around you.

If you have low self-esteem, you tend to doubt yourself and your ability to achieve things. You focus on all your negative characteristics, while ignoring or invalidating your positive characteristics. This thinking often comes across in destructive behavior toward yourself and others.

People often confuse high self-esteem with happiness or outgoing confidence. But high self-esteem is not just about “feeling good” or being a loud, outspoken person.

Lots of things make us feel good for a while, but most of them are external to our selves and they pass. The euphoria from a drug, or a compliment, or falling in love, as examples, is not the same as the consistent affirmation that comes with high self-esteem.

Plenty of people also think they’re heaven’s gift to humankind and others tend to equate this thinking with "high" self-esteem. But high self-esteem is not just ego-driven; it’s demonstrated in positive thoughts and actions towards others as well. Anyone who is egocentric, conceited, boastful, bullying, or takes advantage of or harms others, really exhibits traits of low self-esteem, or pseudo self-esteem, rather than high self-esteem.

Losing weight is challenging at the best of times, but with poor self-esteem it becomes even more difficult. If you don’t think you deserve to look and feel good, why bother?

Poor self-esteem encourages a negative and distorted body image, meaning you drastically undervalue your body and appearance; this in turn discourages you from taking care of yourself. And if you don’t want to take care of yourself, where is your motivation to control your weight?

If you have low self-esteem it's also likely that you don’t give yourself enough credit for achievements, focusing on what you haven’t done instead of what you have. For example, if you go for a twenty-minute walk, you tell yourself you should have gone for forty minutes. This sort of self-discouragement can be a major problem for achieving goals; who wants to keep trying when they feel they are constantly failing?

On the other hand, if you have high self-esteem, you believe that you deserve to feel and look better, you congratulate yourself for small achievements, and believe in your ability to eventually achieve your long-term goal of permanent weight loss. Taking care of yourself and your body is a natural extension of high self-esteem.