--- title: My Driver's License Almost Got Me description: A failed bank verification made me realise something had quietly changed. No crash diets, just small habits that finally started working. image: https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hubfs/Fixing%20my%20weight%20issues.png --- [Skip to content](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog/my-drivers-license-almost-got-me#main-content) ![Ditching UPFs logo with minimalist stacked typography](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Vertical%20Version%20of%20Primary%20Logo%20(1)-4.png?width=2000&height=600&name=Vertical%20Version%20of%20Primary%20Logo%20(1)-4.png)Homepage - [Home](https://www.ditchingupfs.com) - [Blog](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog) - [About](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/about) - [Home](https://www.ditchingupfs.com) - [Blog](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog) - [About](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/about) ![](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Fixing%20my%20weight%20issues.png?width=225&height=131&name=Fixing%20my%20weight%20issues.png) My Journey # My Driver's License Almost Got Me ![Yaya](https://7528315.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/7528315/hubfs/raw_assets/public/mV0_d-cms-elevate-theme_hubspot/elevate/images/avatar-placeholder.jpg?width=48&height=48&name=avatar-placeholder.jpg) Yaya April 14, 2026 I needed to do a bank verification thing on my phone today. You know the kind: upload a government ID, take a selfie, turn this way, nod that way, 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. Then I 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 I remember the day it arrived in the mail.  I was so sad when I saw that photo. ![This photo and I had issues](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/This%20photo%20and%20I%20had%20issues.png?width=220&height=279&name=This%20photo%20and%20I%20had%20issues.png) 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 "hmmm, 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. I just got back from two weeks in the UK. I was on vacation. 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 a puffy face from all of that. But even after all that, apparently my face today was still close enough to my 2022 passport photo for the system to recognize me immediately. Because I’m not doing anything extreme right now. I’m just adjusting. [Eating better](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog/how-to-tell-if-a-food-is-ultra-processed-in-5-seconds) more often. Getting back to basics. Protein, fiber, being a bit more mindful. 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. 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 ultraprocessed foods, 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.  Swap one packaged snack for whole food. Walk 30 minutes every day this week.  Something small enough that you can actually do it, and then do it again next week.  I've been stacking weeks like that, and it took a bank app to show me what they added up to. I’m over 40 now. I’ve tried the hard, aggressive, all-or-nothing approach more times than I can count. This slower version feels different, mostly because I’m not counting down to when I can stop. I’m just living. I slip sometimes (hello, brioche) and I keep going. We’ll see where it goes. But for the first time in a long time, I trust the process. ## Share this post [mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ditchingupfs.com%2Fblog%2Fmy-drivers-license-almost-got-me](mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ditchingupfs.com%2Fblog%2Fmy-drivers-license-almost-got-me) ## Keep reading ### [![Tortoise versus hare illustration representing slow, sustainable weight loss.](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/i-chose-slow-sustainable-weight-loss.png?width=1280&height=720&name=i-chose-slow-sustainable-weight-loss.png) My Journey 75 Soft I Chose Slow](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog/why-i-chose-slow-weight-loss) ### [![75 Soft challenge tracker showing 75 days with completed and partial days across the challenge.](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot_75Soft_Tracker.jpg?width=1080&height=580&name=Screenshot_75Soft_Tracker.jpg) My Journey Habits 75 Soft I “Finished” 75 Soft. My Lessons and Experience](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog/75-soft-results) [![Ditching UPFs logo with minimalist stacked typography](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Vertical%20Version%20of%20Primary%20Logo%20(1)-4.png?width=2000&height=600&name=Vertical%20Version%20of%20Primary%20Logo%20(1)-4.png "Ditching UPFs logo with minimalist stacked typography")](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/) - [Home](https://www.ditchingupfs.com) - [Blog](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/blog) - [About](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/about) --- [Privacy Policy](https://www.ditchingupfs.com/privacy)  © 2026 Ditching UPFs. 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