alicefoeller

"There are so many nice touches to the product, it's hard to remember what a technological miracle it is to measure whether I'm fat burning or carb burning at any moment in the day. It's sleek, it's small, it turns itself off, the voice in the app that coaches you how long to breathe in and then breathe out has a wonderful user interface that isn't annoying even after months of hearing, "Breathe deeply through your Lumen..."

The main idea is to be in fat-burn mode more often and for a longer time (if you are trying to burn fat, which most of us are). The device shows you how you are doing, then recommends food to eat that day to keep you on track toward greater metabolic flexibility. There are explainer text blurbs, videos and more, and you can even order food so you can choose exactly what you need each day to match the recommended carbs, fats and proteins.

Having worked with a nutritionist the first half of this year, and started using Lumen in late spring, I stuck with my nutritionist's menu until July, and then when I started giving myself more flexibility, I was comforted by being able to check in with the Lumen, and to get advice on macros. My workout schedule also syncs with Lumen (in a limited way) and so Lumen recommends more carbs on long cardio days. It has a nice graphical way of representing the values of various foods as carbs, proteins and fats, and many veggies don't count toward the total carbs, which I agree with. There are little notes, like, we know avocado has fat in it but you should eat it because of XYZ. I did notice it recommends me to eat a lot more fat that I had in the past, and it's hard to find sources of fat that don't also have a lot of carbs, so that's been a learning curve for me. Nuts, cheese and avocados perform well for that.

I measure each morning when I wake up, and the app cheers me on when I wake up in fat burn. It keeps score of how many mornings per week you wake up in fat burn, and gives advice on how to improve, such as not eating too close to bedtime, and sleeping seven to eight hours.

Overall, this is an AMAZING piece of technology, and the app is just as great as the science, which is rare. I never feel confused using it. My complaints are really around the categorization of food and having the app consider the time of day and whether I consumed workout fuel during the workout. I think this should be accounted for differently so I could compare a long run with water only to a long run with energy gels or sports drink. It is possible to measure my breath when I return from the run, but it's not as accurate if I've eaten any of that fuel within the last hour and if my heart rate is still elevated from the activity. That's more a limitation of how our bodies work than the devices fault, but maybe they could run a formula against those particular measurements to compensate somehow. Anyway, overall it's very very cool to do such advanced measurements without even getting all the way out of bed. This device was provided to BT for reviewing purposes. I will be renewing the app subscription personally. Here is our affiliate link to purchase Lumen."alicefoeller