Why am I fat? Because my self-esteem is crushed.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

So: without doing blind studies on ourselves, we are terribly bad at evaluating ourselves. We can convince ourselves of anything, and often do.

But even if this is 100% the case, isn't a placebo effect better than nothing? You know you'll never really convince yourself that eating junk food is good for you, so that option is out. And you know in your heart that eating healthy food is better for you, whether the gains are immediate or long term--so if you did manage it, and immediately felt better, why would you care whether it was psychological or real? You'd still feel better.

It is your current psychological self--the one you admit feels worthless, crushed, and broken--telling you that the benefits of change would not be real, they'd only be you convincing yourself that it was real. But your convinced psychological self would feel very differently. You would not feel that it was fake, you would feel that it was real. You would feel better. If there is a part of you that is enough above the broken self to recognize it for what it is, then there is a part of you that can take the decision-making role away from the broken self, even if, for right now, you don't believe it will work.