The world has slowly started understanding metabolic health and why it matters so much. Understanding your metabolism, how it functions, and what could be harming or helping it will help you make lifestyle changes that will transform your overall health for as long as you live. We always keep our eyes and ears open for consumer technologies that empower our journey to good health and well-being. And we have the Lumen health device to thank for the balanced diet, daily exercise, and quality sleep that are a part of our lives today. This non-invasive, handheld device works on a simple method: it measures the CO2 in our breath, providing us with real-time data on whether we’re burning fats or carbohydrates for energy. It’s the pathway to metabolic flexibility, which is your body’s ability to easily and efficiently switch between using fats and carbohydrates as sources of fuel.
It’s this adaptability that’s essential for maintaining fitness levels, optimal health, and energy balance. Not only that, but it also provided us with many other useful data points, making it a fantastic device that we used to get onto the path of personalized wellness. Here’s a deep dive into how Lumen can transform your metabolic health.
Are you taking your first Lumen measurement? Check out the breathing tutorial.
Receive Personalized and Real-Time Metabolic Feedback
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If you’ve seen the breathing tutorial or used the Lumen, you’ll know that Lumen scores of 1-5 tell you whether you’re burning mostly fat (1,2), mostly carbs (4, 5), or a mix of both (3). After two weeks or so, you’ll get your first Flex Score, a number between 0-21 that tells you about your metabolic flexibility at this juncture. A score of 15-21 indicates high metabolic flexibility, a score of 7-14 puts you in the medium zone, while a score of 6 or lower indicates low metabolic flexibility.
What makes Lumen a standout in a sea of similar apps is this personalized metabolic feedback that reflects real-time fuel usage of carbs or fats by our bodies. It’s this immediate insight into metabolic state that’s the ticket, as it allows us to make precise adjustments in both exercise and nutrition routines, tailored to our bodies’ needs and preferences. This real-time customization and feedback are instrumental in improving metabolic flexibility and health.
If that wasn’t enough, Lumen’s algorithm takes into account various body types, including mesomorph, ectomorph, and endomorph, individual physiology, and other unique markers specific to each of our bodies. That’s because different bodies and body types metabolize nutrients differently, which affects the time taken to reach our metabolic goals. It’s this level of personalized feedback that takes into account all differences that impressed us.
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Understand Body Patterns
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One of the most important things when it comes to bettering one’s metabolic health is understanding one’s body patterns. Even if you use the Lumen for just a few months, it’ll help you spot some patterns in your body. For instance, women who are menstruating might not wake up in as much of a fat-burning mode as they do when they aren’t on their cycle. This could happen because menstrual cycles have two major phases, the luteal phase with rising progesterone levels sees the body’s preference towards using fats for energy, while the follicular phase and its rising estrogen levels mean that the body is primed for using carbs efficiently.
Furthermore, the device can identify these metabolic shifts over time, understanding women’s menstrual cycles and making adjustments and recommendations to support the menstrual-metabolic rhythm. It might suggest foods to replenish iron stores lost through menstrual bleeding, or suggest foods to offset carb cravings and snacking.
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Ensure Lifestyle Adjustments
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Even if you eat, drink, and exercise healthily, it doesn’t ensure metabolic flexibility. Chances are that there are some lifestyle habits, such as consuming alcohol or sweet treats from time to time, that might need a little tweaking and adjusting. While they might not impact the metabolism overall, the Lumen scores in real-time will definitely reflect that. It could happen in the form of increased carb burning, either if you add excessive alcohol or sugar to your lifestyle, or right after consuming them. That’s because the body registers alcohol and sugar as stressors and has the adrenal glands release more of the primary stress hormone, cortisol. This, in turn, has a negative impact on overall metabolic health as it can disrupt the regular functioning of the endocrine system, which regulates hormone balances in the body.
Since all these changes will be visible in Lumen measurements across the day, including the morning and post-meal ones, the app helps the user figure out what needs to be cut from their lifestyle, and when.
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Enjoy Delicious Metabolic Meals
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Talking about dieting is easy enough, but actually thinking about what meal to make and actually making it is a task indeed. Plus, when we have to do that day in and day out, it could become tedious as well. Luckily, the Lumen app offers a fabulous user experience in the form of its partnership with Metabolic Meals, a chef-made meal delivery service. Not only do they have an early menu for Lumen, but they can also send people meal kits based on their Lumen scores, thus working towards improving their metabolic health.
Whether you’re craving Chinese, Mexican, or Italian food or whether you want sodium-free, diabetic-friendly, or gluten-free meals, Metabolic Meals whips up more than 30 new meals every week. So, unless you want to, you’ll never eat the same meal twice in as many as 30 days! Internationally trained chefs, fresh ingredients, even freshly prepared meals – what more can you ask for?
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Optimize Daily Routines
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Improving metabolic health begins with changing up your daily routines and establishing a sustainably healthy one. The Lumen device is extremely beneficial in optimizing your everyday routine in a consistent and structured manner. Since it’s a versatile device, anyone can adapt it to fit their unique lifestyles and needs.
Firstly, the device helps us begin our days right with personalized health insights. After starting the day off on a high, it constantly checks in during the day, which is one of the best things about the device and app. This is especially important when you’re establishing a healthy routine, as it’s around midday that we tend to forget about food, water, and all good habits we thought about in the morning, whether it’s due to work or daily chores. Finally, Lumen analyzes our evening habits, which could be varied when we spend time at home versus when we socialize. It reminds us to allow our bodies to unwind, eat mindfully, hydrate, and sleep, which is necessary for good metabolic health.
“We loved that the Lumen app was on top of our daily routine, especially when we were starting out. Soon, enough, it became a lifestyle!”
Dizzzi
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Accountability
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One of the top ways how Lumen improves your metabolic health is: accountability! Since we need to enter every gram of food we eat at every meal of every macro to get the most accurate readings, we end up actually paying attention to what we eat. As we make sense of our Lumen readings over the days, we understand our body and realize which foods affect us in what way. What’s more, we also have to update our weight, record every minute that we work out, and watch how many hours we sleep – and this is day in, day out.
So, if you’re someone who’s willing to put in tons of effort and is ready to make transformational changes in your dietary habits, Lumen propels you forward, making you more aware of what you’re eating and how that food is affecting your body. It’s this accountability that leads to consistency and sustainability, as well as change in habits, which ends up greatly affecting one’s metabolism positively.
Did we mention that there’s even a Lumen Facebook group with thousands of other “Lumeners” for support, tips, and motivation? Yes!
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How Does metabolic flexibility improve health?
Since the metabolism powers everything that happens in the body, metabolic flexibility allows the body to switch more easily between burning fat and carbs, which improves all aspects of one’s well-being.
Does Lumen need calibration?
It doesn’t need recalibration once you’ve done your first measurement, as it’s calibrated to your unique lung capacity and carbon dioxide (CO2) range.
Can I delete a Lumen measurement?
Yes, you can, but be warned – deleting a Lumen measurement is irreversible.
Some images on this article are copyrighted by Lumen.