Twins Hugo and Ross Turner have been playing adventure sports for 10 years.
Twins Ross and Hugo Turner, better known as The Turner Twins, have become famous for their multiple adventures and expeditions to the most remote and inaccessible places on the planet. His latest more home challenge, but very revealing: they decided to compare the vegan diet with the omnivorous one.
Genetically identical and in very similar physical condition, they were perfect for this experiment that they conducted together with researchers from King’s College: for 12 weeks, one would follow a strictly vegan diet and the other an omnivore, with similar calories. In parallel, both would carry out a physical training plan and check basic health metrics such as weight, cholesterol and muscle mass.
Eventually they discovered that Hugo, who had opted for the vegan diet, had lost weight and his body fat index had dropped significantly, losing four pounds of weight. Hugo said his energy levels went up and he felt significantly more active during lunchtime gym sessions than his typical routine.
The feeding experiment lasted 12 weeks.
His brother Ross, who followed an omnivorous diet, slightly increased body fat, but the main weight gain was due to the increase in muscle mass, of which he gained about 10 lbs.
Ross ate a macronutrient balanced meal with chicken, fish, red meat, vegetables, dairy and grains. His cholesterol levels remained stable.
“We wanted to eliminate prejudices and opinions, bring them to the genetic level (…) We are genetically identical and we can confront each other in extreme environments,” Ross explained to the Insider website.
Both have been elite athletes for 10 years.
vegan diet
Before starting the vegan diet, Hugo weighed around 195 pounds and had 13% body fat. After about a month off of animal products, the twin lost nearly five pounds (although he regained some during the rest of the trial).
By the end of the experiment, he weighed 180 pounds, while his body fat dropped to 12%. Their cholesterol levels also decreased. “By eating a vegan diet, you have to compensate, so I was eating foods that I wasn’t really used to,” she explained.
Hugo also noticed improvements in his condition. “On a vegan diet my mental focus was much better, I didn’t have low energy in the mid-afternoon and I felt a little more energized,” he acknowledged. However, she also noticed that her libido dropped dramatically. “I lost it, I really don’t know what happened,” he said, warning that his experience may not be the same for everyone.
The twins Hugo and Ross Turner, at the center of a unique experiment.
This diet also caused major changes in Hugo’s gut microbiome, as his usual animal-based protein was replaced with things like tofu, tempeh (fermented soy), and jackfruit.
Ross
At the start of the experiment, Ross had about 13% body fat and had gained 10 pounds of muscle. This slightly increased her overall percentage to 15% and her final weight to 85 pounds. Likewise, their cholesterol levels remained constant throughout the 12-week experiment.
Regarding his diet, the twin described consuming a variety of chicken, fish, red meat, vegetables and dairy products. Before, I only ate toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and some protein for dinner.
They both had opposite diets.
But to their surprise, the twins saw a decrease in their microbial diversity or in the number of different species of bacteria in their gut. This is related to a lower resilience against some types of chronic diseases.
Ross, for his part, said that meat eaters tend to be reluctant to try vegan foods and hopes this experiment will encourage them to diversify their eating habits. This is considering that many substitutes, such as soy burgers, are similar in taste and texture.
At the end of the 12 weeks, Hugo and Ross’s results weren’t all that different, even with very different diets. In conclusion, the Turner twins explained it the optimal diet is based on a mixture of foods of plant and animal origin.
However, these results cannot be extrapolated to the entire population because they are high-performance athletes, with very strict training routines and diets, where a simple change can lead to better or worse sports performance.
However, the brothers recognized that a 12-week period is not sufficient to carry out a dietary study. If they could do it again, they would do it for six months to a year to get better data.
“Having a vegan diet has benefits and eating meat too. I don’t think either of them will outperform the other here, “said Hugo.” We’ll be doing a combination of both, having meatless days and adding more vegan foods to our diet, eating better quality meat and less. We’ve had the best of it. both worlds “.
Source: Clarin
