Hannah McChesney
Your health is contagious.
Be the Spark
How My Primal Journey Began...
Diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition at 30, I was told I would be fully blind by 50. No hope, nothing to do to even slow down the decline. I left the office in shock.
Flash forward 20+ years later ….
With various changes that support an anti-inflammatory, ancestral health lifestyle (started in 2009), I am 6+ years past that diagnosis, and have halted my blindness degeneration. I also lost close to 50 lbs in 2009, and have kept it off.
My speciality is short term programs that will light the spark in my clients to ultimately make lasting change. I use the tools of ancestral living and an anti-inflammatory lifestyle to help clients attain their short and long-term goals.
From being overweight and fighting degenerative blindness at 40, to thriving over 15 years later!
This is the story of how I slowed down my blindness and lost about 45 lbs, through diet and lifestyle changes.
I lost my ability to see stars when I was 26, and was diagnosed at 30 with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative blindness that slowly robs vision. It especially affects peripheral and night vision. I was told I would be fully blind by 50, with no hope of slowing or reversing my blindness.
After that life-altering diagnosis, I put it in the back of my mind, just trying to live my best life. Mostly I tried to eat more green vegetables, but didn’t notice much change.
In 2009, at age 40, I noticed that my friends were either looking great but putting in tremendous hours at the gym (training for triathlons etc), or they were aging horribly.
Those friends were eating highly processed foods, drinking too much, gaining huge amounts of weight, and overall feeling miserable. (Note, 16 years later, some of these friends are dead because of their toxic lifestyles).
From There to Here...
Before:
Age 34
I wanted to look like my fit tri friends but didn’t want to work out that much (or that hard). After going gluten free the year before (2008), but still not losing weight, I discovered the newly self-published Primal Blueprint, by former Olympic marathoner, Mark Sisson.
After sending this book to my sister, who is a Naturopathic Doctor, she read it and pronounced it good science.
For the next year I followed the 80/20 rule of Primal living and lost close to 50 lbs in a year, (going from a size 12 to a size 4).
I also realized my vision loss was not progressing.
While the vision wasn’t coming back, it also wasn’t getting worse. And even better, the “snow” that many RP patients have didn’t seem to affect me anymore.
Could it be from my anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle?
Besides losing the weight and keeping it off (while halting my vision loss), I also realized I was starting to look younger.
After:
Age 44
This was all because of the primal diet: an anti-inflammatory and grain free lifestyle that emphasizes eating real foods, like our ancestors did.
Primal Living also promotes a lower stress lifestyle, emphasizing sunlight, being in nature, exercising a certain way, healthy sleep and healthy play. This way of living has turned off the expression of my RP genes and turned on the genes for youth and vitality.
Now I’m a proselytizer for ancestral health, as it has helped keep me from going blind and aging at a rapid pace. Instead, I'm staying fit and healthy!
Over the years I’ve stopped drinking (hugely inflammatory and destructive to gut and brain health), and also worked hard at healing my microbiome.
The recent gut health education was a missing piece to my knowledge of overall health. By cleaning up my gut health, I’m even more confident that I won’t completely lose my eyesight!
Instead of being fully blind at 50 (predicted by doctors when first diagnosed in 1999), I have arrested this degenerative progression. My central vision is still 20/20, and my peripheral vision is still not narrow enough to be considered legally blind.
By becoming a warrior for my own health, I’ve also gotten the education, training and certifications I needed to fully help others change their lives.
Media
Watch - Primal Health Coach Institute
Watch - Primal Health Coach Institute
Read - Canvas Rebel
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