My Lumen Review: One-year Update
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Don’t Buy The Lumen Metabolism Tracker Without Reading First
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m sharing my Lumen review: one-year update.
Did this metabolic tracker help transform my health and well-being?
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Will it work for you?
Let’s get into it.
Last year, I worked with Lumen to show you how the Lumen device can help turn you into a fat burning machine.
Well, since it’s now one year later, I wanted to give an update on my thoughts on if Lumen works for me and if it is a good fit for you.
How Often Did I Use Lumen Throughout The Year?
To be transparent, I used the Lumen on and off in dedicated chunks throughout the year, rather than every single day.
Since my nutrition habits are pretty consistent throughout the year, I prefer to use the Lumen in 3-4 week periods to track how positively or negatively the following 4 lifestyle factors are impacting my metabolic health:
- Nutrition
- Movement
- Sleep
- Mindset
Based on my tracking, 3 of these lifestyle factors were positively impacting my metabolic health, and one was definitely negatively impacting it.
I’ll share which one in a bit.
In all honesty, when first started using Lumen, I was actually a little frustrated with it at times, and I almost gave up on it.
There is a learning curve to understanding the data.
However, once I started doing a few things differently, I feel like I began to get more accurate readings from my Lumen device.
I’ll share more on how I did that later in the post.
What Health Benefits Did I Get From Using Lumen?
To be clear, as a 5’11” 175 pound man, weight loss is not my goal.
As a 42 year old dad of two kids, my health goal is to optimize my nutrition, training, and sleep for overall health and longevity.
However, since I’ve been consistently following the recommended daily macronutrient breakdowns provided by Lumen, I noticed:
- My physique is noticeably tighter
- I was energized throughout the day
- My will power stayed strong as I didn’t have to make decisions on what to eat
- I honestly felt my mood was better and I just felt happier
I guess you could say, Lumen is a vibe.
What I Discovered About Myself Using Lumen Over Time?
I’m a big believer in starting your day with a healthy habit, and love to continuously implement new healthy habits in my day.
This keeps me accountable and helps me progress towards reaching my health and fitness goals.
Once I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I do to start my day is take my morning check in breath measurement.
I find this is a great starting point to keep me disciplined with my decisions throughout the day.
I simply take a morning breath, then let the Lumen device provide me with the answer, based on my unique metabolism for that day.
This removes human error and helps me make more accurate meal planning decisions based on science, rather than my current feelings.
I’m also a very logical person, meaning I like to make health decisions, on if something is working or not, based on data, rather than just emotion.
Carb Cycling Plan Based On Your Current Metabolism
Based on how my metabolism is functioning, the Lumen tells me if my body needs a:
- Low carb day
- Medium carb day
- High carb day
I’m the type of person that always gets better results, when I follow a plan.
Since I’m a fan of carb cycling, I no longer have to guess which day it is.
The Lumen does this for me, as it acts like my nutrition coach.
What Is The Lumen Flex Score?
The most important thing I discovered with using the Lumen was how much my lack of quality sleep is impacting the health of my metabolism.
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After taking 2 weeks of morning breath measurements, the Lumen provides you with a Flex score.
The Lumen Flex score indicates on a scale of 0-21 how flexible your metabolism is, based on using the right fuel for energy, at the right time.
According to Lumen, it’s optimal fuel your activity throughout the day by burning carbohydrates.
Then when you are less active in the evening, it’s optimal for your body to switch to burning fat for energy.
This is what is happens when you have metabolic flexibility.
My current Lumen Flex score is 10.8, which is considered having medium flexibility.
Using Lumen For Better Sleep
Even though my workouts and nutrition are on point, and I’m usually asleep by 10pm, lately I’ve been struggling with staying asleep throughout the night.
Whether it’s taking care of my sick kids in the middle of the night, or managing the stresses of running a business, while being very involved in raising my family, my sleep has taken a hit on many nights.
This is due to the season of life I’m currently in.
Unfortunately, on nights where I have poor sleep, I notice I wake up with a carb burning score of 4 or 3, even though I’ve worked out and hit my macros.
It’s clear, this poor quality sleep seems to be spiking my stress hormone cortisol, which then switches me back into carb burning in the morning, rather than fat burning.
Once I get my sleep back on track, my goal is to boost my Lumen Flex score up into the high flexibility range between 15-21.
Which Lumen Features Did I Use Most And What Could Be Improved?
I really like the functionality of the food logs to track your macros.
Although I don’t plan on tracking my macros 365 days a year, I do recommend it when you are looking to transform your physique.
After a few weeks of tracking your macros inside the Lumen app, you will begin to get a true understanding of the nutritional breakdown of foods and portion sizes.
Once you gain that knowledge, you will have the ability to eyeball a lot of foods, without tracking your macros.
If the food has a barcode, you can simply scan it with your phone, then all you need to do is input the food measurement.
I also like that it saves the foods that you previously used, which makes it easier to find again.
One feature I’d love to be added is being able to create and save meals that I eat over and over again.
That way, rather than manually inputing the individual foods and amounts in the food log every day, I can just select a pre-made meal that I use all the time.
How Has My Lumen Experience Improved Over The Year?
I remember when I first started consistently using the Lumen, I was frustrated.
On day 1, I was:
- following my 16:8 intermittent fasting protocol
- eating all healthy fat and protein sources
- consuming less than 50 grams of carbohydrates
- working out for 60 minutes a day
- walking 10,000 steps a day
Based on this, I was expecting to see a fat burn score of 1 during my morning breath measurement.
Well, I was shocked to see a carb burn score of 4.
This led me to do some research online to find if other people were having the same experiences.
After reading a few blog posts, other user’s recommended it’s important to use the features inside the Lumen to:
- log your meals and snacks to track your macros
- record workout types and times as this actually does affect the macros Lumen provides you
Although I was eating healthy and working out, I wasn’t inputting this data inside the Lumen app.
The common thought amongst the community was tracking this information inside the app would give the Lumen more data to provide a more accurate reading.
To be clear, this advice didn’t come from employees of Lumen, so I’m not 100% sure if logging all this data helps the Lumen device provide more accurate results.
However, once I started logging my meals and workouts, my breath measurement numbers began to come down, and seemed to be more accurate, based on my behaviors.
Finding My Optimal Fasting Window
I’m also excited to continue using Lumen to find my optimal intermittent fasting window.
I’m currently following a 16:8 intermittent fasting window.
However, on occasion I noticed I would wake up around 6:30am and blow a fat burn score of 2, then my pre-workout fasted breath measurement at 10:30am would be a carb burn score of 4.
- “This suggests the body overextended its fat burning state and the stress response was triggered…”
- “If you fast for too many hours it can trigger a counteractive stress response in the body, which results in carb rather than fat burn.”
Based on this, I’m excited to continue testing different fasting windows to find what works optimally for my body.
Will Lumen Work For You?
Like all things fitness and nutrition related, it depends on you.
If you’re into measurable data and need accountability and structure, then yes, the Lumen device and app is a great tool to help you reach your fitness and fat loss goals.
However, here’s the big factor.
In my opinion, the Lumen may be better suited for people who are already on their way with their fitness journey.
If you’re brand new to fitness, I would not necessarily recommend using the Lumen as your first step.
Even though Lumen does include a lot of education videos and daily goals inside the app, the main data from the Lumen could be overwhelming, and frustrating to a beginner.
As a beginner, you’d get way more benefit from first focusing on learning the basics of working out and nutrition.
However, the Lumen can be a great investment for you, once you’re a few months into your journey, and have a better grasp on the fundamentals of working out and nutrition.
This is especially true if you:
- Thrive with structure
- Tracking your results
- Enjoy using data to make better decisions
That’s my Lumen review: one-year update for you Live Lean Nation.
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Is Lumen legit?: https://lumen.me/reviews
If you’ve used the Lumen, please share your experiences with the community in the comments below.
As always, I’m here to help.
I appreciate you very much.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.