hey there dr morgan nolte here today’s
episode is all about how to improve your
metabolic flexibility with lumen
lumen is a small convenient breath
device that helps your body develop
metabolic flexibility
that means you can efficiently switch
between using carbs and fat for fuel
lumen identifies if you’re using carbs
or fat for fuel by measuring the level
of carbon dioxide in your breath when
your body’s cells produce energy from
either carbs or fats they release carbon
dioxide in your bloodstream
when you’re using carbs for fuel more
carbon dioxide is released than when
you’re using fat this translates into
carbon dioxide levels in your breath
which lumen measures pretty cool
a higher level of carbon dioxide means
your body is using carbs a lower level
of carbon dioxide means your body is
using more fats
i’m going to show you how to use the
device
so all you need is your phone so you’ll
download the lumen app
and then here’s the lumen device and it
comes with this magnetic cap that you
can just pop off like that
and when you’re ready to test your
breath you’re going to open up the phone
app
so i’ll turn it towards you
and then you press this little button
right here
a little purple breath
and so this is my morning breath
now technically it’s best if you’re
sitting down and you’re relaxing for a
few minutes before you’re you to your
breath not necessarily recording
um like i am right now that’s how you’re
going to get the best results
so it says to turn on your lumen and so
i just press that little white button
there on the front
and it’s connected to my phone
and you’ll press the little let’s go
button
okay
so it’s warming up
she told me to inhale deeply through my
lumen and you’re gonna see this little
ring grow in size so
hold your breath
exhale in three two
one
and then it likes to usually take
another breath
so it has you hold your breath for
several seconds
um and then you exhale so i don’t know
if you heard her say that um but you’re
supposed to inhale till the circle turns
green and then hold your breath for
about 10 seconds and then exhale
and it kind of gives you a nice little
indicator on how fast to exhale so you
don’t go too slow or too fast
inhale deeply
here’s the second breath
hold your breath
exhale in three
two
one
all right so let’s see i have not eaten
anything yet today
so we’ll see what i’m burning
so it says i’m burning mostly carbs so i
got a level four
which isn’t totally surprising so let me
explain why that is a little bit more
one day a week i allow myself an
exception and so like last night i had a
dessert i had some healthier monster
cookies like three little ones
but that was probably enough
carbohydrates to
give me enough to continue to burn carbs
this morning for fuel and the other
thing that really affects that again is
any stress
if i’m sleep deprived which we kind of
are
in this phase of life because we have
two young kids and that will kind of
push you to burning more carbohydrates
too because it’s a chronic stress on
your body
so
the other thing that can push me into
burning mostly carbs would be
in eating too much protein the day
before so excess protein can be turned
into glucose i still follow a pretty
high protein diet
but it will affect my ketosis if i’m
eating um too much protein so kind of
interesting pretty easy hopefully you
found that tutorial helpful
to get the most out of lumen you’re
going to want to use it each morning at
the very least and follow its
personalized macronutrient plan each day
what your body uses for fuel in the
morning is a main indicator of your
metabolic health
lumen has five levels level one means
you’re burning mostly fat for energy
while level five means you’re using
carbs for energy and ideally a good goal
is to have a level one or two when you
wake up in the morning
that means you’re burning fat overnight
and using a lower carb approach and
intermittent fasting are two excellent
tools to help you get into a fat burning
mode faster if your body is using carbs
for fuel right when you wake up several
things could be going on you may have
eaten later at night eaten too many
carbs the day before been stressed out
or maybe you had a bad night of sleep in
my case sometimes i actually overdo it
on the protein which can be turned into
glucose and hamper my fat burning
ability so seeing that higher lumen
level in the morning is a good reminder
to check in with yourself and see what
you can optimize for fat burning
if you are consistently eating carbs
throughout the day your body won’t have
a chance to really utilize the glucose
in your blood and glycogen in your liver
and muscles to truly tap into excess fat
storage for energy because it doesn’t
need to
and as a friendly reminder you can
become metabolically inflexible the
other way too
if you’re eating very low carbohydrate
for a sustained amount of time your body
reduces its ability to efficiently
process those carbohydrates and this is
when i get reports of people who have
gone keto and have such a strong rebound
of weight gain when they don’t sustain
that diet and start eating carbohydrates
again
lumen also likes to keep track of things
like your daily exercise sleep and
carbohydrates
now based on this information it gives
you a customized macronutrient goal for
the day to improve your metabolic
flexibility
what’s interesting about lumen is that
it provides a metabolic flexibility
score
which is measured on a scale of 0 to 21
a great metabolism is flexible it’s good
at shifting quickly between fuel sources
based on its needs and to estimate how
healthy and flexible your metabolism is
lumen relies on three factors your
body’s ability to burn fat to burn carbs
and how closely your morning flex score
is in sync with your daily lifestyle
data that you’re entering
so levels 0 to 6 means your metabolism
is not as flexible as it could be
7 to 14 means you have a healthy
metabolism
and 15 to 21 is a very flexible
metabolism to teach your body to use
both sources of fuel lumen recommends a
customized nutrition plan each day
what this means is that it gives you
slightly different macronutrient goals
for the day
it also gives you high carb days which
they call boost days to help your body
shift to burning carbohydrates
the ratio between the low carb and the
high carb days will depend on your
personal metabolism and goals
there are a lot of benefits to having a
flexible metabolism
your blood glucose levels will be more
consistent so you’ll have more energy
throughout the day with less energy
crashes
you’re going to perform better during
workouts and have fewer carb and sugar
cravings
and my favorite part is that your
insulin sensitivity will improve which
will help your body burn fat more
effectively
build more lean muscle mass and help you
improve your body composition more
easily
as your insulin sensitivity improves
your insulin resistance goes down which
is what i’m all about for sustainable
weight loss and disease prevention
a strong level of metabolic flexibility
has also been linked with a stronger
immune system and better sleep quality
one of our new zibli members spoke truth
into this as just a month into her lower
carb intermittent fasting lifestyle and
mind you she wasn’t doing anything more
than about 13 hours of fasting each day
she reported better sleep quality better
fitting genes a thinner face and less
pms symptoms all in just one month
research has shown that people who are
more metabolically flexible are less
likely to develop chronic health issues
like obesity type 2 diabetes heart
disease and even dementia
again this goes back to reducing insulin
resistance
based on my own research lumen’s
nutrition plan or daily macronutrient
ratios lined up with what i typically
recommend to my members so i was happy
to see that
the amount of protein remained pretty
steady each day while the amount of
carbohydrates and fats is what
fluctuated
to make it easier to follow their
nutritional recommendations they’ve
included some tools inside their app and
highly encourage you to focus first on
carbohydrates i liked this because when
you’re just starting out it may be
overwhelming to try and focus on
optimizing all your macros
prioritizing on reducing carbs was a
good call there are a few basic
trainings in the form of click-through
images and short videos sort of like
instagram content explaining how to use
lumen and get the most out of it they
also provide some resources to track
your carbohydrate servings in a day
they have a food database which will
give you the food and how many carb
points it is for the day
and it also has some nice recipes and
meal inspiration
they are planning on rolling out an
in-app food tracking system so that you
don’t have to use a separate app like
the carb manager app i like using
personally i think it’s a lot simpler
just to track net carbohydrates instead
of trying to learn their rules for how
many carb carbohydrate points
certain carbs have but you can
absolutely do that too you can track
macros or you can do carb servings they
just use the points system to try to
make it simple for people who don’t want
to track their macronutrients
however from my experience i know that
carbohydrates specifically added sugar
are hiding in a lot of healthy foods so
to get the most out of lumen i do
recommend that you also track your
macronutrients
it will be highly beneficial when they
have their own macronutrient tracking
system inside of the app which is a
feature that should be rolling out
shortly i hear i’m interested to see if
the daily macronutrient goals
change according to their
recommendations based on your breaths
the carb manager macronutrient goals and
most every other app that i know of are
the same every single day which makes
getting the most from lumen a little
difficult and why i think they emphasize
focusing on tracking carbohydrates first
to make it simpler my guess is that in
the lumen tracking app your
macronutrient goals will automatically
be updated each day to help you reach
your metabolic flexibility goals but i
don’t know about that yet because they
haven’t released it
personally i think that the lumen device
would be most beneficial for athletes
who want greater insight into how to
optimize their performance during
workouts while optimizing fat burning
when they’re not doing those high
intensity trainings
you can take a breath before your
workout to understand if you’re using
carbohydrates or fat for fuel before
your workout
carbohydrates are the preferred fuel
source for high intensity workouts
because they’re very efficient for your
body to use when it needs that quick
energy
if you don’t have enough available
energy or carbs before a high intensity
workout you might feel sluggish maybe
get a light a little light headed so the
lumen goal before a high intensity
workout would be to achieve a three four
or five indicating that you’re using
some or mostly carbs if you’re at a
level of one or two
meaning you’re using mostly fat a small
dose of carbs before your high intensity
workout may improve your performance
for a low intensity workout like walking
or yoga you’ll be just fine using fat
for fuel
the last thing i wanted to talk about
was what lumen calls a boost day
when you’re practicing a low carb diet
for a long time you’re risking your
body’s ability to use carbs as fuel
efficiently this means when you do eat
carbs you’re going to feel bloated and
gain weight quickly
on your boost day you’ll be eating
significantly more carbohydrates and
less fat than your baseline
but they do recommend getting those
carbohydrates from whole food sources
such as fruits veggies or grains
it’s important on your boost day to take
a breath measurement
30 minutes after eating your high
carbohydrate meal
getting a 3 4 or 5 will show that your
body has shifted to use carbs for energy
and that your boost stay worked this
information is worked into your overall
metabolic flexibility score which you
can have after using the device for a
couple of weeks consistently
that’s why regular breath measuring and
following their nutrition plan is
important for accurate results about
your metabolic flexibility in ziv lee we
teach something similar but we call it
an exception day we recommend following
your baseline plan about 90 of the time
when you’re losing weight and 10 percent
of the time having an exception day or
meal or food
everyone’s exceptions will look
different based on their personal goals
nutritional preferences and mindset
around how loose they want to get with
their nutrition
my overall assessment of lumen is that
it’s a lot like anything else in life
you’re going to get out of it what you
put into it i found it interesting that
lumen measured fat burning via carbon
dioxide levels whereas i was used to
measuring my ketones to assess the level
of fat burning
and that requires a finger prick so
ketones are a byproduct of fat
metabolism and they’re a really accurate
way to assess if your body is burning
fat for fuel
i did notice the lumen tended to be
easier to manipulate
if you take a test breath too close
together
you’re going to get false data that
you’re leaning more into fat for fuel
than you probably actually are
so definitely take several relaxing
minutes between breaths if you’re going
to be doing repeat testing to get more
accurate information i did appreciate
that the lumen was easy convenient and
simple to use and that i didn’t have to
prick my finger or get a ketone test
strip out to check and see if i was in a
fat burning mode or not
i believe that this would be best
utilized by someone who is already
comfortable tracking their
macronutrients and is ready to optimize
their metabolic flexibility if you want
to start tracking your macros we have
free trainings for you at
www.zivuli.com forward slash macros i
would also love to use this device
during a longer fast
to see what fuel sources i’m using as
the fast goes on
because i’m so evidence-based i did
appreciate that they tried to make the
evidence behind how to achieve metabolic
flexibility
as simple as possible
lumen tells you what to do however
if i was a newbie i would probably need
a little bit more information for how
and why to do things they do have a
facebook group that likely offers some
level of support and then aside from
that facebook group they also have
nutritionists on staff and really
helpful customer support if you need any
help or have any questions along the way
knowing what to do works well for some
people for other people they need a
little bit more support and
accountability to learn how to do it
consistently
our goal with zivali is to give you what
to do
how to do it why to do it and the
ongoing coaching and behavioral support
so that you can do it consistently
if you’re highly motivated detail
oriented
love learning and you want to take your
results to the next level give lumen a
try i’ll put a link in the description
below this episode for how you can try
lumen yourself you can also learn more
on their website at www.lumen.me