though it’s not a device for me the
lumen could be great for you find out to
hear all about my experiences with this
device
hey guys alex here from alexburgers.com
and today i’ve got a review of the lumen
metabolism device i guess that’s what
you call it um i’ve been using this for
a bit over two weeks now and i have to
be straight up it wasn’t something that
excited me personally
now i don’t want my negativity to come
across as this being a bad product
because it’s not it’s just that
in my situation and my understanding
about health and wellness and what i do
and how i eat and how we live i don’t
really need this in fact it was more of
a burden than anything i mean yeah it
was interesting getting some of the data
but i think there’s better ways to get
that data and uh some of the the
features that you know
that really drive this uh device
i just didn’t i just didn’t need them i
just didn’t find it much use in them and
um it was becoming more of a chore than
anything to use this device which is not
good right uh you know you don’t want
something to be a chore especially if
you’ve paid for it
okay so first things first what is the
lumen well if you head over to lumen dot
me you’ll see some uh you’ll see a video
and some good um overviews of what
exactly this device does and how it
works but in a nutshell
it’s a device that measures your
metabolism it shows whether you’re
burning carbs or fats or a bit of both
and it does this by measuring your
breath you simply breathe in and out on
this device a few times sync it with
your iphone and the algorithm works its
magic and gives you a score it doesn’t
give you an exact breakdown or a
percentage or anything like that which
would be really cool and in fact that’s
one of the
criticisms i have with this device it
just gives you a score between one and
five one being
car burning fat oh sorry i think one is
more fat burning and five being carbs uh
which all sounds really good uh and like
i said if you head over to the website
here i’ll read out some of these
statements the first device the heck of
metabolism enhancing how much fat
burning lose weight boost energy
naturally
it utilizes advanced technology once
only available to top athletes and
metabolic testing clinics
now it’s you know available in your
pocket and it’s got all your reviews uh
the gold standard of personal metabolism
tracking scientifically proven to meet
the gold standards gold standard and
multiple validation studies and see
that’s an on that topic that’s another
reason um i wasn’t the biggest fan of it
because i often did back-to-back
readings and my score changed and i
hadn’t really
done anything like i’d stayed in the
same spot so as soon as you’ve seen that
you start wondering how accurate is it
um tracking metabolism daily so you can
see how things like your diet sleep
training exercise uh all impact your
metabolism and then it gets into the
whole uh customizing your nutrition
getting meal plans and meal
recommendations to be honest i mean you
read all that and you think wow this is
awesome and that’s what i thought now
after using it for two weeks though i
found
i don’t know i found it was lacking i
found it was more general
recommendations and general feedback um
i don’t know i guess there’s someone who
sees myself more as an advanced
biohacker i’m you know he’s happy to do
multiple blood tests and
all these experiments and there i wanted
more out of this and after using the app
for a while i feel like one of the main
drivers behind the app is to help people
like lose weight which is not a problem
for me or a goal for me and really it
has a big emphasis on the nutrition side
which of course is this it’s tracking
your metabolism right so that’s what you
want to do but it’s all about you know
carb intake and how many portions of
carbs did you have and all that
now personally if you’ve been following
my blog or maybe you’ve done one of my
health coaching programs over the years
you’ll know that
i i don’t like that approach to diet and
living in general i don’t like tracking
calories i’ve got a really good article
on um you know calories and and why i
don’t believe in tracking calories so
check that out um i i think it’s too
restrictive i think it’s
i think there’s been a way better ways
of dieting and improving your health and
well-being and all that and that’s how i
live right and for me if we go off on a
quick tangent here for me it’s all about
basics but doing them consistently and
making sure that rock solid so for
instance prioritizing sleep um getting
some exercise once or twice a week or
three times a week getting outside as
much as possible
eating good quality food so
i don’t care if i have you know
a treat or a dessert or something but um
i make sure that it’s you know homemade
with organic sugar and like
raw milk and good quality ingredients
right versus like just go to the
supermarket and get in the frozen
pie from from the freezer section so
that’s how i personally live and that’s
what i find to be sustainable and easy
to do and i i found it works really well
with clients now i really wanted
this to be like more scientific i guess
so a good comparison here is right now
i’m testing levels health
app which is synced with my
libra
freestyle
continuous glucose monitoring device now
that’s given me hard numbers right it’s
showing me uh it’s giving me exact
readings and of my glucose levels i can
plot when i eat
food and see the reaction it’s telling
me over two hour period you know was my
blood glucose all over the place or not
and it’s really cool i um if i train it
shows me what’s happening with my my
training effect on my blood glucose if i
get stressed i was running late the
other day and my blood glucose went
through the roof you know i get hard
numbers right and it’s really
interesting to see that data
this is all a little bit
yeah just you know really high level
sort of
generic general sort of stuff which is
again
not really what i want okay so i’ve
opened the lumen app here so first
things first you say good afternoon a
bit of niceties in there but straight
away you see that nutrition plan at the
top let’s have a look at that a bit more
detail so why this plan your body at the
moment so i’ve been getting a lot of
higher carb readings right and i have
been need a lot of carbs lately um
that’s just the diet i’m eating at the
moment uh so my body’s eating a lot of
carbs limiting carbs will help you shift
to a body of fever okay cool um today’s
measurement so today i’ve only done one
measurement it was in the morning uh 8
30 i had a four out of five which is not
great uh and then as i scroll down a
little bit more i can see my commitment
this week monday was a three today was a
four so that’s what you see on the main
screen um if i go into tools it’s just
it’s lots of information stuff right you
know heaps of meals to fit your plan um
finding meals with the right carb intake
uh there’s some videos you know how to
do your morning measurement how to use
it all the time
some insights about what’s going on in
my body uh when your body attach sensors
like you can click all these and get
some interesting tidbits and stuff which
all right but i don’t i don’t 100 agree
with them like like this as long as
there are cards in your system your body
will will use them first
i mean we know that’s not it’s not so
black and white like that only when you
use up your cup stores your body shifts
to its fat stores for fuel and that’s
that’s just
like that’s just not true because um you
know we all know well
if you’ve been in the bodybuilding space
you know a lot of people do really high
carb low fat diets and they drop down to
ultra low levels of body fat right so
anyway so things like that i’m just like
it doesn’t really sit with well with me
um and then down the bottom practice
breathing a little breath yeah cool so
then
we go go over to the me section of the
screen and this is really where you can
see finally start seeing some data but
there’s not really that much in there so
the first thing is that lumen fix flex
data at the top that has taken me two
weeks of daily readings to get that
score so i actually only got that score
i think today or yesterday so previously
it just had a locked icon so we’ll come
back to that so so then beneath that you
can see my morning scores which are
typically around that three reading
which is not ideal two would be one or
two according to the lumens of one or
two would be best i find that quite
interesting because i always do about a
12 hour fast each night um at least like
you know if i have dinner at seven i
don’t typically eat breakfast until
seven sometimes later 8 a.m um so i’m
quite surprised that some of those
readings are like quite high four and
fives remember higher readings show that
i’m using more more carbs and the other
thing is like sometimes at night i don’t
eat many carbs anyway so yeah i find
that quite interesting but then this
also shows that i sort of have some
doubts about the readings because
like i said i have got it up i’ve done
my reading in the morning like you meant
to
and then i’ve done a reading not long
after without having any food without
doing the exercise and i’ve got an
entirely different number so then i
think well what’s going on here um
so yeah that’s that’s one concern i have
with with those numbers and of course if
the numbers are incorrect or inaccurate
then the whole thing’s inaccurate anyway
as you scroll down here you see my
levels over time and there’s no real
pattern there we can click on week month
three months i’ve only been using it for
a fortnight so yeah and then we can
click up here on morning and i can
change it to before eating after eating
before training i think i’ve only ever
done one pre and post training reading
so you could see your print post
um
yeah and it stayed at two for both
things so you know that is kind of cool
the downside though is like
i thought i’d take heaps of readings
right i just thought oh before every
meal and after every meal i’ll do it
before every training session after
every training i’d use it but i only did
that for like a day or two and then i
stopped and um this was before like i
started realizing that hey this device
wasn’t really for me
this was just simply out of
with practical reasons it was just it’s
quite time consuming to do this so i
thought it would be a simple blow in
uh inhale exhale job done but no what
you have to do is you have to sit you
have to sit with your feet on the floor
relax okay cool
then you have to do a deep inhale
through here
then
you hold your breath for 10 seconds
then you do a big exhale now um there’s
a little guide on the screen on the yet
and that helps you uh stay
nice and you know keep your breath the
right flow and all that sort of dress
and
about three quarters of the time
it goes through fine but there’s a
quarter or maybe even a third of my
readings i don’t get good numbers it
says i have to do it again which is very
frustrating because you’re like am i
going to sit there and do another one
you know maybe i exhaled too fast or i
stopped inhaling too soon so anyway you
do the first reading then you gotta wait
15 seconds just sitting there and then
you do the second reading and again you
hope and by the second reading i mean
the second breath and by then you you
hope that you get the second one right
so the whole process could take
it’s probably like one or two minutes
right but if you stuff it up you add an
extra 30 seconds or so now i know you’re
probably thinking hey alex that’s
nothing but
yeah it’s nothing for a morning reading
but to be honest it is a bit if you’re
wanting to do it before every meal and
after every meal let you sit down and
dinner oh okay well now i’m gonna do
you’re ready for your stuffed up one you
gotta do it again you’re waiting you’re
waiting your wife’s sitting there or
your kids sitting there thinking what
are you doing i’ll actually eat your
food you know uh and then you do that
and then you’re gonna do a follow-up one
afterwards
like i said it gets a bit old especially
me as a dad you know like i’ve got lots
going on in my life i’m not just you
know the same biohacker i was five years
ago where i dedicate tons of times to
some of this stuff but soon it just got
to the point where i was like i just
can’t be bothered taking a reading and
that’s why i stopped doing you know
before and after trainings i think i did
some befores but then i forgot to do the
afters and you’re just like oh i won’t
even bother taking it to the gym anymore
so
it’s a shame because um if it was so
much easier to use like yeah i probably
would like if it was just one quick
in-out breath you probably would just
use it all the time hey what’s my levels
done okay but it’s not it’s a couple
minutes and if it goes wrong it’s an
extra minute or two so that’s why uh
when you look in my levels on the yapiya
um there’s actually not that much
reading down again you’ve got my weight
section i only plotted my weight when it
asked me at the start i don’t care about
my weight i just leave it why care about
it but i’m not tracking it right like
i’m just at peace with uh my health and
diet and body composition so
that’s it but that’s it like that’s
really all you have on the app um and as
you can see i i really feel like the
fact that it’s got my weight down there
um i think it really is focused more
towards like
fat loss clients right like people who
really want to uh optimize their diet to
burn fat um which is what all the cues
and recommendations and all that you
know the pop-ups like hey try and cut
back on your carbs and get more into fat
burning mode like i really think that’s
what it’s geared towards which is not
which is not me and it may not be you
either if you’re more you know an
athlete buy a hacker um watching this it
probably doesn’t interest you either
instead you might want to look more at a
you know continuous glucose monitoring
device which we’ll get to soon so let’s
go back up to the top the lumen flex
score now this is why i was putting the
effort into
the effort in each morning to um
consistently you know take that reading
because it said i needed two weeks
reading to get my aluminum flex score
now um it gave me a score out of
7.5 i think it was out of 20 so that’s
quite bad right that means i’m a
shocking uh card burner which is you
know hey it’s not great um my background
i have done all sorts of diets and yes
i’ve done
very very strict ketosis for about nine
months i think it just wasn’t for me um
i’ve done a lot of cyclical ketosis
which is a diet that i actually really
like and do recommend but at the moment
i you know here in new zealand
wintertime i had porridge for breakfast
with some maple syrup and some raw cream
uh lunchtime i had
some
home killed sausages
with um
some potatoes i think and a little bit
of a homemade chutney so you got carbs
sugars fats and that um dinner tonight
we’re having roast pork with some apples
sauce pumpkin
peas beans you know like it’s just a
well-rounded diet it’s all good quality
ingredients everything’s from our farm
or you know really organic stuff but
there’s lots of sugars in it i guess i i
often have juice um
i drink a lot of milk um yeah so so
that’s probably reflecting why my score
on here is bad now is it bad though like
well according to that yeah it should be
so much better but i i get the
impression that to get it really really
good
i have to be in ketosis or close to it i
i’m it’s just the
it’s just a theory um obviously i can’t
prove it but just based on the feedback
i get you know like it’s all about cards
and all that um carbs and fats and that
i i just i feel like that’s what it is
um sort of focused on which is you know
hey that’s all good but it’s just not
really what uh i’m doing so a few things
i should mention about the product
itself battery life was great like you
can probably get
15 readings out of this on one charge um
so that’s good to know you’re meant to
keep it in a travel case when you take
it away like if you put your gym bag in
there and i i think i did that once and
i just keep forgetting about it it’s
just it’s more things you got to do and
um
more of a hassle right so i was actually
just taking it like this which isn’t
great um charging dock and the design is
really cool as well it all works really
nice but i do get a bit concerned about
like the cleanliness of it like because
you’re blowing into this inhaling and
exhaling all the time right like maybe
multiple times a day um
you can clean the outside but you can’t
get into the inside here
so you can clean all around here but you
can’t get right in there to clean um
and you know like you’re breathing
through it right i’m sure there’s
moisture and also what’s going to be in
fact one day i had it lifts in there and
my boy my toddler picked it up and he’s
like playing around and blowing and
stuff and it was just covered in like
saliva and stuff and i’m just i mean
it’s it’s my boy right like he’s all
good but i thought to myself well i
actually can’t clean that out like this
there’s no way i can do it like if
another kid came up and picked that up
oh gosh
so i don’t really know how that works uh
from a cleanliness point of view like in
a year’s time is this going to be super
gross i’m not too sure and the last
thing is before i do wrap up um
i have mentioned the levels health app
and that is something that i am
experimenting with at the moment and um
i will be doing a review on that now i
think if you’re someone like me who is a
little bit more i want to say advanced
but i don’t mean that in a in a negative
way like for people who aren’t advanced
i just more into the more advanced sort
of stuff with their health and whatnot
then
you know if you have to choose between
the two definitely go with one of these
because these things are really cool i
mean i’m seeing some awesome data so
i’ve found out for instance that um corn
chips like just
send my blood glucose levels sky high
and then i get some serious rebound
hypoglycemia it’s happened twice now i’m
like wow okay that’s weird and it’s
weird because i have it with a lot of
cheese and south cream and avocado right
but every time i have these corn chips
it’s just
rocketing um and i can see that in grass
and stuff and you get two weeks worth of
data out of one of these and i’m
starting to see some really interesting
patterns and trends and correlations
emerge and that’s hard numbers but it’s
giving you like a number you can go off
and compare to
um you know peer reviewed pubmed studies
whereas this the lumen is just giving
you a scale of one to five it doesn’t
say you’re doing x percent but uh fair
and carbs and that so i don’t know it’s
if you’re into more of the advanced sort
of stuff a bit more serious about the
biohacking side of things and health
then yeah maybe consider one of these
instead of the lumen if you’re just
looking for some assistance to lose
weight and you’ve tried all sorts of
things and pts and follow diet plans
nothing works then hey try the living it
could be perfect for you and i’m sure
it’s perfect for a lot of people it’s
just not perfect for me all right guys
i’m going to leave it there i hope
you’ve enjoyed this video if you have
give me a thumbs up uh be sure to
subscribe if you want to see more videos
and reviews from me especially the
lumens uh the levels health review which
will be coming in a few weeks time um
otherwise i will see you later
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