Hacking Metabolism For Muscle Growth - My Lumen Experience

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Your metabolism can be a bit of a mystery. I’ve questioned at times if mine is fast or slow at times, I’ve wondered why I’ve struggled to lose weight at some points, and at other times why I couldn’t gain any.
For the last few weeks though I have been using this device called the Lumen, to figure out exactly how my metabolism is working and how I can make adjustments to my eating habits to make it function better.
So let me briefly explain how the lumen works. For your body to run it needs to burn either carbohydrates or fat and depending what your body is using for fuel, when you exhale, your breath contains a varying amount of CO2. This device is able to measure how much CO2 is in your breath and is able to determine what your body is currently using as fuel.
Based on what your body is using, the Lumen can make recommendations on which food sources you need to eat more or less of in order to meet your metabolic needs. Sometimes it may even be just a matter of timing like this commenter stated.
The Lumen works with an app on your phone or tablet and you can choose what your goal is. You can pick between weight loss, increasing muscle mass or just to gain general metabolic insights. I chose increased muscle mass for my goal and figured I'd probably also lose fat along the way anyways.
Generally, I eat two meals a day, lunch and dinner. I’m not on a low carb diet and I eat carbs as I please. I would say my diet is a third carbs, a third fats and a third protein. I wake up burning fat most days and then move up to burning both fat and carbs most of the time. But I did find out how one day of bad eating really affected my metabolism and it took much longer than I expected for my body to process it and return to normal.
On Easter, we had a big meal, and I definitely over ate, especially when it came to carbs. I finished the meal at 2 PM, and then I didn’t eat for the rest of the day. That night when I went to bed, I was actually kind of hungry, I used the lumen to take my reading and I found out I was still burning mostly carbs. The next morning when I blew into the lumen, I clocked in at a 3 which meant I was burning a mix between carbs and fat. A 3 was a bit higher than I was normally used to seeing, it was usually a 1 and sometimes a 2.
I skipped breakfast like I usually do on weekdays and took my reading again before lunch, at which point I was back up to a 4, which meant I was still burning mostly carbs. Normally I would have been a 1 by now because this was after I had fasted for 20 hours! In all it took 2 whole days for my metabolism to return to what I was used to seeing.
Another thing I learned is there were times after fasting I was sure I was burning fat, but I wasn’t, just like in the example I just gave. I do intermittent fasting periodically and generally after about 12 hours of fasting, it’s assumed you're starting to burn fat, but that was not always the case. Sometimes for me it would take several more hours for me to reach that point, but to 14 to 15 hours.
But on the flip side of that, sometimes I could reach that point much faster than 12 hours, sometimes it was only 9 to 10 hours. So it was really interesting to see how my body handled the different foods I ate and how my metabolism responded.
By using the app, you can track what you eat and the lumen can help make suggestions for how you should eat the following day based on how your body responded to foods in the past, which is pretty handy.
Like I mentioned previously, my goal with the lumen was to help me improve performance and to try and gain some more muscle. What I found though was I was struggling to eat enough protein to build the muscle I wanted. The lumen helped me to make adjustments to my eating and by making those adjustments and following a workout routine I was able to do just that and increase my muscle mass.
So I took measurements before I began using the lumen and following its recommendations. Here you can see my stats pre-lumen.
I was able to add size to all the muscle areas I worked out on except for my calves, but they are difficult for me to grow anyways and I was able to reduce the size of my waist. I give credit to the lumen for helping me to realize I wasn’t taking in enough protein to see the muscle gains I was after.
In all, I think the Lumen can be an incredibly useful tool in understanding how your metabolism works and can help you reach your desired results, whatever they may be. But with all things, you have to actually follow its advice to see any real results. It’s kind of like having your own personal dietitian helping you along the way.
A special thanks to Lumen for working with me to help make this video possible!

[@mcosse1]

Thanks for the review. I’m currently trying to build muscle and burn fat together, and it’s hard to get the carb/protein intake just right for that, so it sounds like this helped you figure it out. Can you tell me which “track” you used (price point)? Also, how many weeks apart are your before and after stats? Thanks!

[@UHaulShorts]

can u burn protein?

[@SimpleManChannel]

I believe it turns into a carb of sorts or into fat

[@jerryloradrifter]

Your digestive system can turn protein into energy in a process called protein-gluconeogenesis. This process often consumes more energy than renders. This is why many early settlers starved and died (rabbit death) when unable to harvest animals with any appreciable fat in the flesh.

[@vitaminb4869]

Meh. Another gimmick gadget, without any scientific proof to back it up.