I definitely didn’t get it right the first few times I tried. The app has a helpful little bouncing ball you are coached to get in the center of a circle to make sure you’re not breathing too hard, too soft, or too fast. And usually you have to do that twice to get an accurate reading (waiting 15 seconds between each test). In the app there is a “breathing” tutorial - Lumen advertisements say it takes only 10 seconds to get a measurement, but you have to inhale for 10 seconds, hold your breath for 10 seconds, and then exhale for 10 seconds. Bluetooth capability is required to get these two to talk to each other, but I had no issues once I powered my Lumen on. Once my Lumen was fully charged (as indicated by a green light while it’s cradled in the docking station), I set about pairing it with my Lumen app. However, with the current restrictions that have just been levied surrounding female reproductive health and privacy, if you’re a woman in the United States, unfortunately, you may wish to leave that feature toggled off. The app also allows women to track their monthly cycles, which could be great information to have when examining metabolic shifts. I decided to select “Healthy Weight Loss” to start. There are three options: Metabolic Health, Fitness Performance, and Healthy Weight Loss. Once all your basic data has been collected, you have to select your track. But since I didn’t have any of those, I was left doing everything by hand. It is possible to link Lumen to your Apple Health, Google Fit, or Garmin IQ account if you have one (which might give you even more accurate readings for activity levels and such). You can go back and edit some of this later, but as I was filling it out in the beginning, I did feel a little hampered trying to structure my workout schedule. I found this frustrating because while I’m super active, my exercise routine changes daily and I don’t always know what my workout will entail ahead of time. The small square starter box comes with the Lumen device, its docking station, a USB cable for charging, a travel pouch, and the Lumen App Getting Started Guide. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee and a 1-year warranty on the device. You get the Lumen device for “free” along with your paid subscription. Lumen is only available as a “subscription” service through the Lumen website. And if you can get yourself into a state of metabolic flexibility, Lumen says you’ll end up with a whole bunch of rewards, such as:Įnhanced physical performance Lumen review: Price and availability Just like your muscles become fitter with regular workouts, apparently so does your metabolism if you pay attention to how your body switches between burning carbs and fats. If you’re in the Lumen fat-burning mode more often, they claim it becomes easier to lose weight and stay lean. The ultimate goal of Lumen users is to achieve “metabolic flexibility,” a term coined by the company that basically means your metabolism becomes more efficient at burning fat and not just carbs for energy. (Image credit: Lumen ) Lumen review: Why does your metabolic rate matter?īut how do you use your RER number in day-to-day life? This is where the “hacking your metabolism” part finally comes into play. However, this definitely seems to be a product that continues refinement the longer it’s on the market (it debuted in 2020). A high CO2 reading means you’re burning carbs, a low CO2 number indicates you’re torching fat.īut is it accurate? Lumen says its validity as a metabolism measuring device has been reaffirmed by a San Francisco State University study. With this in mind, it’s easier to understand the premise of Lumen, which is that you can now get your RER anytime you want by breathing into your Lumen, no lab test required. That number ultimately lets you know your metabolic efficiency. If you went in for a professional lab test to have your metabolism measured, you would get back your Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER), which is the amount of CO2 exhaled divided by the amount of oxygen (O2) inhaled. This is because when your cells metabolize carbs, they produce more CO2 compared to when they metabolize fat. The higher your CO2 concentration, the more you are burning carbs for fuel. To understand what any of this means to you, we need to take a second to explain how the Lumen device harnesses the tenets of metabolic science.īasically, Lumen measures your metabolism/metabolic rate based on the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in your breath. Lumen review: What exactly is Lumen measuring?
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