Life as Liia

"Sandra Blakeslee reentered her body one afternoon about 15 years ago. As a young woman in her early 20s, she had gotten heavy and, like many who struggle with weight, thought of her body with loathing and shame. This persisted even after she discovered exercise in her 30s, became slim and fit, and managed to maintain her weight loss. Intellectually, she knew she was in shape; emotionally, she still believed she was plus-sized. “I felt there was an iron plate between my head and my body,” she says of those years. Then, when she was 50, she was taking a long, solo bike ride into the wilderness of New Mexico, and as she ascended a trail everything shifted. “Suddenly, it was like I was hit by lightning. My body completely changed.” She had an image of herself as a beautiful 16-year-old girl—the girl she had once been and long ago left behind. “I started to cry,” she recalls. “It was a sense, all of a sudden, that I was in a body I didn’t hate."