These days there are countless diet strategies out there. Between keto, paleo, low carb, intermittent fasting, meal planning and dozens of others – there’s no shortage of different ways to try and lose weight.
I’ve never really adhered to a specific diet, but I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of intermittent fasting.
The idea is you only eat during a specific window during the days to get your body to more effectively burn fat rather than carbs.
For instance, all your food intake might be between 11am and 7pm. And you fast the other 16 hours of the day.
When you’re in a fasted state after sleeping, your body and metabolism in a perfect world will shift to burning fat rather than carbs.
So by delaying your food intake, it theoretically helps you make it easy to burn fat and lose weight.
But any time I’ve started dabbling in intermittent fasting, which for me is just code for “skipping breakfast,” I’d always find myself wondering: am I actually in fat-burning mode? Does this really work? How do I know what type of fuel my body is actually burning?
Until recently it was very difficult if not impossible for the average person to know the answer to this.
But recently I came across a new biohacking device called Lumen Metabolism that says it will tell you what fuel your body is burning.
This allows you to “hack your metabolism” to lose weight, have more energy, and actually reach your health and fitness goals.
But the real question is: does it work?
That’s the answer I set out to find in this review. Read on to find out.
First Impressions of Lumen Metabolism
You’ve gotta give props to the Lumen team, the device is very well-designed.
No, I mean, really well designed.
The experience starts with the box and packaging. In nearly every product review I do, I talk about the “Presentation.” How do the packaging and design enhance or detract away from the product itself?
Well with a device like Lumen, which is not only a new company, but a completely new type of product to most people – the presentation is incredibly important.
If you spend $300 on a device from a company you’ve never heard of, and end up with cheap packaging that’s not well-thought-out – that experience will put you in a negative mindset. Now you’re expecting the rest of the product to be lackluster as well.
But the opposite can also be the case. If something looks high-end, is packaged in a high-end way, and has little bonus features that you aren’t expecting?
Then you’re preparing yourself for the rest of the experience to be positive as well.
Fortunately, Lumen falls into the latter camp.
In fact, it may be the best example of this concept I’ve ever seen.
I wasn’t very familiar with Lumen before receiving my device. I was admittedly skeptical of the quality of the product and if it would actually work.
But it took mere seconds after opening the box, to make me think “oh, maybe this is the real deal after all.”
Quite simply, Lumen Metabolism is a beautiful device.
There’s a color-changing LED ring on the front that illustrates various modes, and the black silhouette down to small details like a metal cap – all feel a step or two above what I’d expected.
In the box, you’ll find the Lumen device, a carrying case, a charging doc, and a USB-C cord that plugs into the dock.
It’s a very nice package, but for as good as the physical design is, it doesn’t mean much if that app design and usability falter. So does it?
Setting up the Lumen Device
Setting up the Lumen is super easy and intuitive.
It connects via Bluetooth and walks you through the process for getting going which is very fast.
Despite being easy to setup, there is a little bit of a learning curve here.
This is to no fault of the Lumen itself, but rather the fact it’s essentially a completely new type of product.
The chances are you’ve never used a smart device that tracks your metabolism before.
There’s also a good chance you don’t know much about the science that goes into it.
So Lumen needs to not just educate you on the science of switching from burning carbs to burning fat, but it also needs to educate you on the ins and outs of the device itself.
Things like when to track, how many times per day to track, what you need to do to get different results etc.
I’ve found Lumen to do an excellent job of educating me, and not making myself (quite) as overwhelmed in the process.
But it is a lot to take in and takes a few days of using it to get comfortable with how to use it properly.
My First Readings with the Lumen
Now I’m a reasonably in-shape 36-year-old, who is fairly active. So I expected my initial readings with the Lumen to be halfway decent.
Using the device is pretty simple.
You fire up the app and turn on the Lumen and tell it you’re ready to take a reading.
The app walks you through exactly what you need to do each time.
You’ll start by deeply inhaling through the Lumen for about 10 seconds. There’s a meter on the app that will show you how hard you’re sucking, and you’ll need to keep it within a certain range.
When it tells you you’re done, you’ll hold your breath for 10 seconds, and then proceed to exhale through the Lumen – again keeping your exhale volume to within a certain range.
Then you’ll do it all one more time.
The whole thing takes around 2 minutes to do and once you get the hang of it, it’s very easy to use.
When you’re done, Lumen will give you a score of 1-5.
1 means your body is in full-on fat-burning mode and 5 being you’re basically only burning carbs.