Get fit in the gym and lose weight in the kitchen. That’s been our motto for years. Today, we are excited to share our Lumen review with you. Lumen is a small device that can hack your metabolism. Sometimes we aren’t sure what we are doing wrong. Are we not working out enough? Are we not fueling our body with the right foods? Lumen is the first consumer device that identifies if your body is using fats or carbs for fuel. We have been more focused than ever to develop healthy habits and be more fit in 2021 with Lumen.
Social Distancing and Working from Home
Working from home and losing access to the gym certainly makes it easy to unexpectedly pack on the pounds. Sometimes when you wear athleisure all day, you don’t even realize it until you step on the scale. We have been very focused on trying new health and wellness products and programs to be healthier in today’s work from home environment. When we heard about Lumen, we were excited to give it a try and share our thoughts with you.
Lumen Review: What is Lumen?
Lumen is the first hand-held, consumer device to measure your metabolism. Lumen was designed by twin sisters, Michal and Merav Mor. They wanted to track their metabolism for an Ironman race. Now we get to test out the device and provide you with a detailed Lumen review.
This sleek, black device is portable and easy to use. Before Lumen, metabolic testing was only available in hospitals and clinics. This hospital test measures a patient’s respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) and is quite expensive and time consuming. RER is the ratio between the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced in metabolism and oxygen (O2) used.
Lumen Review: How Does Lumen Work?
With Lumen, anyone can measure their metabolic activity from the comfort of their home. Lumen functions like a breathalyzer. Instead of measuring alcohol levels, Lumen uses RER and measures the CO2 levels in the user’s breath. The breathing part can be a little tricky. Don’t get discouraged. It takes some time to figure it out how to breathe deeply into the device and exhale at the appropriate pace.
We take our measurements first thing in the morning. Occasionally we will take more throughout the day, either after a meal or a workout. Be aware that you can’t take the measurement immediately right after an intense workout or even a brisk walk. You need to be at a resting heart rate.
To use Lumen, you’ll need to download the Lumen app. We connected ours to our iOS health data. Then turn on the device and head to the app. You’ll watch a breathing tutorial. Once you are ready, press let’s go. Make sure to sit upright and relax when taking your breaths. If you lie down or are not relaxed, you will likely need to retake the breath (this happened to us a lot at the beginning). You may need to take anywhere from one to three breaths to get a reading.
Lumen uses a CO2 sensor and flow meter to determine the concentration of CO2 in your breath. This indicates the type of fuel your body is using to produce energy. You’ll need to inhale a certain amount of air through the Lumen device, hold it for 10 seconds and then exhale through the Lumen device.
Lumen Review: Overview of the App
Once you turn the Lumen on, sit back and relax. Next turn on the Lumen App. On Day 1, you’ll answer questions about your lifestyle and health goals. Then you’ll watch some videos on how to breathe using the Lumen device. Then you’ll breathe into the device multiple times after waking up, eating and working out. Lumen uses this process to determine your lung capacity.
Then you we see a colored ring and you will need to inhale into the device until you hit the outer circle.
If you don’t hit the outer circle, you will need to start over. After holding your breath for 10 seconds, you will need to exhale into the Lumen until the screen disappears.
You need to exhale and keep the ball in the middle of the bar. If you blow with too much force or too quickly, you’ll have to start over. If you restart too many times, the device will have you pause and wait for 5 minutes before you can take another breath.
Then you will receive a score from 1-5. Just ate cookie? Well chances are you’ll be a 4 or 5. Burgers for dinner last night? Same story. No starchy carbs and lots of healthy protein for dinner tend give us 1 or 2 readings in the morning.
Lumen Review: Your Own Personal Nutritionist
Lumen provides you with daily insights that you can use to hack your metabolism. Lumen teaches you about your metabolic health. Lumen explains how your body reacts to your current diet. Every body is different. Since we have been in Deer Valley since December, our meals have been pretty similar. We’ve also been skiing a lot or going to the gym together. Even though our meals and levels of activity are similar, our Lumen scores have been quite different.
We are going back home to NYC at the end of the month. At home, we want to change up our diet and see how our Lumen scores change. We’ve probably all done Atkins, Keto, Pescatarian, Vegetarian or juicing diets in the past. With Lumen, you can see which diet works best to improve your metabolism.
Lumen Review: Lumen Daily Insights
Lumen‘s daily insights helps improve your metabolism by improving metabolic flexibility. Lumen tells you whether you are using fats or carbs as a source of energy. We take a reading every morning. The reading is affected by what we ate the previous day. Lumen scores you between 1-5 after each breath. 1 suggests you are mostly burning fats, 5 suggests you are burning mostly carbs and 3 suggests you are burning fats and carbs.
You can also see how your levels change throughout the day, week or month.
Lumen Review: Lumen Flex Score
After two weeks of using Lumen daily, you’ll get a Lumen Flex Score. Your metabolism, sleep, nutrition, and fitness data affect your Lumen Flex Score. The Lumen Flex Score ranges from 0-21, and is obtained 2 weeks after using the device. The higher the score, the more flexible your metabolism is.
You can improve your Lumen Flex score by following Lumen’s nutrition suggestions. Lumen’s nutritionists created guides to help with servings and portion size. You need to input carb servings, not number of carbs into Lumen every morning. 1 carb serving is 15g of carbs. This guide mentioned how to think about what 1 carb serving is.
Lumen Review: Cost
Lumen costs $349, but it’s on sale for $299. You can also use the code TWINS to get an additional $50 off the device. It may seem pricy. If you compare the cost to a personal nutritionist, Lumen seems more reasonable. Lumen is a one time cost and not subscription based. Consider Lumen as a cost effective personal and digital nutritionist that’s by your side 24/7.
Lumen Review: Hack Your Metabolism
So here’s the big question. Does Lumen really hack your metabolism? We use the Lose It app to track our meals and macros. Every morning, we input the meals from the night before. Lumen asks how many carb servings we had the night before. It definitely keeps us think about meal planning and eating better after a cheat day (or weekend). The app gives us meal suggestions based on our Lumen readings to optimize our metabolism and workouts. For the best results, we need to follow their recommendations more closely.
Lumen Review: Considerations
Sometimes you have to take multiple breaths to get a reading, which can be time consuming and annoying. Lumen also requires macro tracking and consistency. You have to record or guesstimate your meals from the previous day and make sure to take your first breath before your first meal. The Lumen app requires an Internet connection. This isn’t an issue if you are at home, but could be tricky if you want to take a reading on the go in an area with poor reception. Each Lumen device is usable by only one person. You are putting your mouth directly on the device and there is no interchangeable mouthpiece.
This year hack your metabolism with Lumen. We are working on changing up our diets and following Lumen’s nutritional guide more closely in the upcoming weeks. This year Lumen a try and tell us about your Lumen review.
People tend to think that metabolism is genetically predetermined. That you’re either cursed or you’re blessed. And that’s not true.
Jillian Michaels
Woah this is super cool, I want to try this out!
Great educational post, this is the first time I hear about it.
SUPER interesting! I’ve never heard of this before!
That’s quite interesting and never heard of this before until now. An amazing product to check out some time and thanks for the informative post.
More than one person CAN use it. Obs you want it to only be your spouse as you will both be breathing in and out of it. You both need to have the app to get individual guidance though.
This sounds so amazing! I have never heard of this before, but I have to get it. Technology has really come a long way, and I love the idea of having something at home that helps me track an integral part of my health.
Nnniiiccceeee…I am seeing a Lumen device for my very first time. I love it’s simplicity for the users and the range of things it can do, for you. Thank you for sharing about it.
Oh! This is exactly what I need. Thank you for this detailed review. Happy to know that it is easy to use. Looking forward to getting one.
This is awesome, I will try this and I like that it’s not complicated to use it. Thank you for this awesome review!
Interested in trying this out as well! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Wow, I didn’t know there was a thing already and that sounds so cool. Definitely a great device to have and thanks for sharing this informative post with us.