My Driver's License Almost Got Me

I needed to do a bank verification thing on my phone today. You know the kind: upload a government ID, take a selfie, and the app decides if you're you.

Easy enough.

My driver’s license was right in my wallet so I grabbed that instead of hunting down my passport.

Uploaded the front, uploaded the back, took the selfie. Verification failed.

Tried again. Verification failed again.

At this point I’m like, okay, what’s going on here?

So I pause and actually look at the license photo. I got that thing renewed in 2025. And remember the day it arrived in the mail. 

I was so sad when I saw that photo.

My face was swollen. Properly swollen. My eyes looked smaller, my cheeks were full, everything just looked… off. I remember looking at it and not being kind to myself at all.

Not even a little bit.

Standing there today, I’m thinking maybe the issue isn’t the app. Maybe the issue is that I don’t look like that anymore.

I go grab my passport instead. That one was done in 2022. I wasn’t at my “ideal” weight then either, but I definitely wasn’t where I was in 2025.

And so I took a picture of the passport, did the selfie again… and it went through immediately.

Now, I must mention this.

I just got back from two weeks in the UK. I was on holiday. I ate what everyone else was eating, had more brioche than I've had in a long time, drank sometimes, and genuinely did not stress about any of it.

You'd expect me to be dealing with visible inflammation and a puffy face from all of that.

But even after all that, my face today was still close enough to my 2022 face for the system to recognize me instantly.

I'm still mulling over the craziness of that.

Because I’m not doing anything extreme right now. I’m just… adjusting.

Eating better more often. Getting back to basics. Protein, fibre, being a bit more mindful. Nothing dramatic.

The change is happening slowly and quietly enough that I don't always notice it on a normal day. 

But a bank verification app noticed.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the "slow" part of this whole process and how much resistance we have to it. 

We want the 30-day challenge, the 50 pounds by summer, the clear deadline with the dramatic before-and-after. And maybe that works for some people. 

It has never worked for me long-term. 

What I'm doing now, just reducing the junk bit by bit, building small consistent habits, not suffering, not grinding my teeth through it, is the first approach that feels like it might actually stick.

The goal I'd suggest if you're trying to get started: don't set a number on a calendar. Set something you can do this week. 

Avoid added sugar this week. 

Walk 30 minutes every day this week. 

Something small enough that you can actually do it, and then do it again next week. 

Stack enough of those weeks and you'll be standing in your kitchen one day realizing your face has quietly changed.

I’m over 40 now. I’ve tried the hard, aggressive, all-or-nothing approach more times than I can count.

This slower version, the one I’m doing now, feels different.

Mainly because I’m not suffering.

I’m not forcing it. I’m not miserable. I’m not counting down to when I can stop.

I’m just living, adjusting, sometimes slipping, then getting back on track without giving up on all my hopes.

We’ll see where it goes. But for the first time in a long time, I actually trust the process.