The inspiration for today's topic comes from my visit to the drivers services facility last week. While I had been able to renew by mail the last two times (Illinois licenses are good for 4 years, at least at my age), I had to take the vision test. Illinois requires your height and weight to be on your license. My height and weight have not changed on my license since I first got one back when I was 16. But in reality, my weight was considerably higher for many, many years.

I'm pretty sure it was obvious to the clerk when I was around age 40 that I was lying when I said there was no changes in spite of weighing 304 pounds. My license claimed I was 175 pounds.

I've been under 170 (my WW goal) since 2012. So this time, I did adjust the weight on my license to further reinforce that I will never return to my old weights.

And since I had to go in, I brought all the documents needed to upgrade to REAL ID. Illinois was one of the few states that was not in compliance with the federal regulations regarding identity verification. But we finally got our act together which is good since you need either the REAL ID or a passport to fly after October 1, 2020.

@imastar2 - when I first started working at the retirement community over 13 years ago, I was sure people would be upset with the number I would tell them when I weighed them for their fitness assessment. NOPE - they got upset at how much height they had lost. I had one man tell me I didn't know what I was doing. He claimed he was 6' but I'm 5' 11" and was looking down at him.

I know that I will not be a happy camper to lose any of my inches. Unfortunately, gravity is not our friend and if you live long enough, the discs in your spinal column will become compressed leading to loss of height. Some lose height also due to abnormal curvature of the spine with age or compression fractures of the vertebrae.