CRAZY Experiments With Vegan vs. Omnivore, Weighted vs. Body Weight?!, Plant Protein vs. Animal Protein (SHOCKING!), Long vs. Short Exercise & More With “The Turner Twins.”
Reading Time: 8 minutes
What I Discuss with Ross & Hugo
- Their current adventure promoting a new electric vehicle by driving it from the UK to Shanghai, showcasing it at various dealerships and media events along the way…06:06
- How Hugo's life-altering neck injury at 17 led them to embrace life's uncertainties and embark on extreme expeditions, such as rowing across the Atlantic…12:37
- Comparing the effects of bodyweight versus weight training over 12 weeks, meticulously tracking their physiological changes and discovering significant improvements in strength and endurance (even with bodyweight exercises), challenging conventional fitness norms…17:44
- The specific bodyweight exercises Ross used during their lockdown experiment, the disadvantage he experienced in terms of muscle mass compared to Hugo’s weighted exercises, but also significant improvements in strength and leanness…22:00
- Blood flow restriction training and how it parallels their bodyweight training experiments, emphasizing time under tension and muscle fatigue — rather than heavy weights and their high volume versus low volume training experiment — which found minimal performance differences between 20-minute and 40-minute workouts…25:22
- The surprising efficiency of low-volume exercise for maintaining muscle, VO2 max, and mitochondrial density, suggesting that most people might need less workout time than they think to stay fit…33:09
- Ben’s use of exogenous ketones to stabilize his energy during podcasts, plus the usefulness of blood glucose monitors to understand and manage energy levels effectively and make informed dietary choices…39:09
- Their first nutrition experiment which compared the consumption of plant protein to animal protein over 12 weeks found minimal differences, which may suggest that both protein sources are similarly effective for post-workout recovery when dietary intake is consistent…43:11
- Their vegan versus meat diet experiment conducted for Men's Health UK, which went viral and drew global attention, and their discovery that while the vegan diet significantly lowered cholesterol, it also reduced microbiome diversity, possibly due to the challenge of maintaining a varied plant-based diet…52:04
- The body composition changes during their vegan versus meat diet experiment, with Hugo, on the vegan diet, experiencing a consistent drop in body weight from 84.5 to about 83 kilos, while Ross, on the meat diet, saw his weight increase (however, their fat percentages remained similar)…58:44
- The benefits of genetic testing for better understanding of differences between identical twins and nature versus nurture debate, sharing examples like identical twins developing different health conditions despite living similar lifestyles…1:02:12
- Their fascinating project of converting a yacht to run on a hydrogen fuel cell to explore the pros and cons of hydrogen energy, and a challenging expedition across the Greenland ice cap where one twin used gear from 100 years ago while the other used modern technology…1:04:07
- The upcoming projects, such as setting the altitude world record with an electric paramotor above the French Alps and a similar record with an electric off-roader in South America, focusing on testing new battery technologies, hydrogen fuel cell expedition, and another physical fitness comparison, possibly exploring high fat versus high carb diets…1:07:00
Hugo and Ross Turner are twin brothers and professional adventurers. I first discovered them when I came across their various diet and fitness experiments, in which they have studied the differences between a vegan vs. omnivore diet, weighted vs. body weight gym programs, animal protein vs. plant protein for muscle gain, and a 20-minute vs. a 40-minute gym program to discover if 40 minutes actually offers twice the benefits (you'd be surprised at the results, which we discuss in this podcast!).
In 2007, Hugo narrowly missed paralysis after breaking his neck in a diving accident. In the mix of emotions that followed, a drive emerged to pursue their passion for exploration, anchored by three values: purpose, discovery, and always doing it together.
Ross and Hugo have since gone on to complete many expeditions which include rowing the Atlantic Ocean, attempting to cross the Greenland ice cap, climbing Mt. Elbrus, and reaching several of the world’s continental poles of inaccessibility.
Over the years, the twins have compared the clothing systems, kits, and food of past explorers against the latest modern equivalents to understand the performance differences. Working with scientific teams, they have provided unique insights into how the human body is affected by technology.
The twins are in a unique position to question the world's understanding of the status quo, and in recent years, have conducted human performance studies to help understand the benefits or disadvantages of certain ideas, myths, and concepts.
They have reached several of the world's poles of inaccessibility while testing technology that helps fight climate change (like electric motorbikes), and recently tested a yacht powered by an electric motor and hydrogen fuel cell. These projects have supported the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
In this episode, you'll get an insider's look into the Turner Twins' various experiments and journeys mentioned above, plus you'll discover much more about their adventurous, explorative, and innovative lives. With that said, let's dive into how they can enhance your understanding of geography, technology, science, human performance, and history!
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Resources from this episode:
- Ross and Hugo Turner:
- Fitness
- One Twin Went Vegan. The Other Didn't. Here's What Happened Next
- One Twin Trained for 20 Minutes. The Other for 40 Minutes. But Did Doubling the Time They Worked out Also Double Their Gains?
- Weights vs. Bodyweight Workouts: Which Is Better?
- Charging Into The Future
- Lost in the Right Direction
- Ernest Shackleton: old vs new
- The Blue Pole
- Plant protein vs animal protein
- Podcasts and Articles:
- 1 Cheap & Easy Underground Training Method For Growth Hormone Release, 5 Biohacks to Increase Strength in 60 Seconds, 7 Exercises for the Eyes to Radically Enhance Stamina & Speed
- The Official KAATSU Episode: Everything You Need To Know About How To Use Blood Flow Restriction For Muscle Gain, Injury Recovery, Testosterone, Growth Hormone & Much More!
- Stack Cold Thermogenesis, Blood Flow Restriction & Grounding With High Intensity Interval Training For Massive Cardiovascular & Hormonal Gains, With VASPER Inventor Peter Wasowski.
- Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Blood Sugar & Glucose Monitoring, But Were Afraid To Ask Or Didn’t Realize, With Casey Means Of Levels.
- A Rocket Scientist Homeschooler’s Insider Blood Glucose Monitoring Secrets, The Best Way To Use A Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), Blood Sugar Biohacking Tips & Much More!
- How To Tap Into The Secret Psychedelic Tactics Of The Ancients Using A Free & Fast Anti-Aging, Stress-Busting, Energy-Boosting Hack.
- Books:
- Studies:
- Other Resources:
- Zoe
- BFR Bands
- CGM
- CAROL Bike (use code BEN to save $250)
- Ironman
- Triathlon Dominator Training Program
- Sauna
- Ketones
- Kion Coffee
- Kion Protein
- The Game Changers
- Sacha Inchi Protein Powder
- Department of Twin Research & Genetic Epidemiology
- TruDiagnostic (use code BENVIP for 10% off)
Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast.
Ross Turner [00:00:04]: We did a vegan versus meat diet a couple of years ago for Men's Health UK for the third time, I think posted on LADbible. Again, twins doing this experiment. And when people say, oh, I've gone vegan because it's healthier and it's just the two of us. And again, we're not holding anyone accountable. It's just what we found that's really not the case. The one thing we want to do is to put the last 412 weeks of studies onto a table. Go right. Which parts of it really benefited us? Get rid of all the negatives and go right.
Ross Turner [00:00:37]: Yes, bodyweight was really good for mobility. Great. Add that in the vegan versus meat. What was really good about that? And then do a culmination of all four of those experiments. The best bits? Try and find a twin versus twin angle in it and then go off and see if we can get even more efficient at the workouts.
Ben Greenfield [00:01:01]: Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality.
Ben Greenfield [00:01:08]: And a whole lot more.
Ben Greenfield [00:01:10]: Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.
Ben Greenfield [00:01:25]: A few months ago, someone sent me a link to an article about these twin brothers who did an experiment to see what resulted in the best fitness response, a 20-minute versus a 40-minute gym training protocol. Like it like can low volume equate to high volume? The article was interesting and I'll link to it in the show notes, but then it turns out these same brothers had done, like animal protein versus plant protein, a vegan versus omnivore diet, bodyweight versus using weights. And then, I took a deeper dive into these guys and they actually travel all over the world going on these crazy adventures. Super inspirational. And I wanted to get them on the show to not only talk about these crazy experiments that they run but just their life in general. Because I think you'll find these guys super interesting. Their names are Ross and Hugo Turner, the Turner twins. And all the show notes, links to their articles, their website, their crazy adventures, and badass videos.
Ben Greenfield [00:02:29]: I'll put it all at BenGreenfieldlife.com/turnertwins. That's BenGreenfieldlife.com/turnertwins. They're joining me at some ungodly hour, like 01:30 a.m. somewhere across the world. So, fellas, thanks for doing this and sacrificing sleep to do it.
Ross Turner [00:02:46]: Morning, Ben. Thank you. It's great to be on the show, and yes, it's 1: 30 in the morning here in pretty much the middle of the outback, Western Australia. This is an unplanned location for where we're calling. We were meant to be in Hong Kong, but the project team, we're currently on a six month project. We're a little delayed. They said, look, go make yourself busy.
Hugo Turner [00:03:09]: For a few days.
Ross Turner [00:03:10]: So we thought, let's go to Western Australia. So, yes, it is 1:30 in the morning, but no, it's great to be connected. Thank you.
Ben Greenfield [00:03:16]: Are you actually on one of your crazy adventures right now?
Hugo Turner [00:03:20]: We are, yeah. We are essentially launching a new electric vehicle by doing a global tour from the UK to Shanghai over a course of. We've lost count. It's gotta be five months, four and a half months at the moment and counting. We've got another four weeks to go.
Ben Greenfield [00:03:40]: Wait, you're going from UK to Shanghai using an electric vehicle, correct?
Ross Turner [00:03:45]: Yeah. So the idea is we are launching this new vehicle, but driving quite literally every day to a dealership, revealing it, showing the local area or the local dealership or country dealership, the car, having the media press there each night, and then driving onto the next location. So we started in September last year, drove all the way through the UK, all across Europe, and then the project has been ping ponging across all the different countries in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and now we find ourselves about to head to Hong Kong and then traveling across China before the Beijing motor show at the end of this month, which is where the project finalizes and we finish.
Ben Greenfield [00:04:30]: Who designed the vehicle?
Ross Turner [00:04:32]: MG. So it's the new two seater, it's called a Cyberster, and it's got very sexy scissor doors that go up and down.
Hugo Turner [00:04:41]: Kind of an incredible none to 60 times, or do you guys say zero to 100 km now of 2.8 seconds? Very, very quick. And it's been a lot of fun, but I think we've aged maybe by 20 years on this trip.
Ben Greenfield [00:04:56]: I can imagine you guys get worn down with all these adventures you go on. I want to talk more about them. I suppose you're not thinking about changing your last name to Musk, being in the electricity vehicle business now. So you're basically sponsored by this company and you guys are like the pilots of the vehicle, so to speak, correct?
Ross Turner [00:05:13]: Yeah. So we've, over the last number of years, have been on some adventures that have really pushed the boundaries or have tried to find something that we will learn that we can say to somebody, oh, did you know this? Did you know that? And the fact that we're genetically identical means that if we are doing, say, twin studies, as you highlighted earlier, whether it's a twelve-week program to find the difference between vegan versus meat or whether it's bodyweight versus weighted, there's certainly for us, it's a learning exercise. So if we can come away having learned something through being curious, and trying to discover something new, that's half the battle for us.
Ben Greenfield [00:05:57]: Right. You guys are like earthbound versions of those twin astronauts that they did, the NASA twins space exposure. Yeah.
Ross Turner [00:06:05]: Do you have any? Is there, like, quite a curiosity in the media around twins, particularly in the UK? We have an app called Zoe app. I don't know whether it's out in the US. I think it's probably going to be launching where you get to put a little blood glucose monitor on your arm and then they do two weeks of. Yeah, exactly that. And then that was started in the UK through a twin program. And because of that, there's quite a bit of hype around twins and interest in them.
Ben Greenfield [00:06:35]: I think it's kind of siloed here in terms of. Mostly in science and research. So, you know, when you look at research on twins in terms of comparing genetic profiles or responses to certain diets, you know, some. Some larger-scale versions of the. The n equals one type of thing, or I suppose the n equals two types of things you guys have done, there is a little bit of interest there, but I don't think a lot of people are, like, super curious about how twins like you respond to different protocols. Besides guys like me and my listeners who just love to dig into, I guess, hacking to a certain extent, and some of the stuff that you guys have done, which we'll talk about shortly, is really reflective of that. I have no twins on my side of the family, to answer your question. You guys could correct me on this, but I think twins genetically tend to be maternally derived.
Ben Greenfield [00:07:28]: My wife has two sets of twins on her side, which we didn't know about until literally, we were getting the ultrasound 16 years ago and the nurse looked at both of us after the ultrasound and said, do you guys have a history of multiples in the family? And, you know, within five minutes, I'm texting all my buddies, talk to them about my, my double success.
Ross Turner [00:07:53]: Was it all a bit of a surprise having twins?
Ben Greenfield [00:07:56]: Oh, totally. Yeah. And it's been amazing. It's been incredible. So, yeah, it's. It was it's definitely a surprise, though. So how about you guys? How'd you get started doing all this in the first place, you know, deciding to do these experiments and adventures and the like?
Hugo Turner [00:08:11]: Well, we were very lucky. We grew up in a place called Dartmoor in Devon, which is southwest of England. It's where the surfing happens, it's where the beach culture, life happens. It's a very, very beautiful part of the UK because it's on the south coast or the very south tip of the UK. We get pretty good weather. That said, we also get all the storms that come up from the Gulf of the Atlantic, and that is where we spent our childhood. We spent it camping. Fortunately, I say, fortunately, we're 35 now.
Hugo Turner [00:08:45]: And as we grew up and had our teenage years, we didn't have social media. I think Facebook was obviously just kicking off around our early teens.
Ross Turner [00:08:54]: No, late teens. Late teens, late teens.
Hugo Turner [00:08:57]: We didn't grow up on social media, so the outdoors was the media that we used as our entertainment. We weren't stuck to our phones. Phones, even 15 years ago, are pretty primitive. And, yeah, we went camping up on Dartmoor, water skiing, fishing in Cornwall, all the amazing outdoor recreational sports that you could possibly grow up doing, we did, and then, at the age of 17, down in Cornwall, on the beach, I was running into the sea, dived in and hit. Hit the bottom and broke my neck. And that was really the moment where everything changed for us.
Ben Greenfield [00:09:36]: Holy cow. And just so my audience knows, this is Hugo talking right now. So, Hugo, you broke your neck.
Hugo Turner [00:09:41]: Yeah, I broke my neck.
Ross Turner [00:09:42]: Yes.
Hugo Turner [00:09:42]: I was, I think, voted the luckiest and unluckiest person at school leaving, and we've just rode that luck ever since. We've decided to live life to the fullest and make the most out of this second chance that I've had. And a couple of buddies, while we're at university at the age of 2021, decided that they needed a couple of guys to row the Atlantic with. And that's where all of these adventures, all of these expeditions, and all of the great unknowns in our lives have come from, is just this accident. Committing to the unknown and learning all these new skills, learning about ourselves, and doing all these experiments has come from.
Ben Greenfield [00:10:31]: So for something like that, rowing across the Atlantic, and you mentioned learning new skills. Had either of you guys ever done anything like that before?
Ross Turner [00:10:39]: No, definitely not. The first time I played a lot of rugby at university, and the first time I rode was the start of this record in La Gomera, in the Canal Islands of West Africa. So everyone says, oh, you know, how much rowing experience have you had? Zero. But rowing in the Atlantic is super different from, say, river rowing. I know rowing in the US is a massive thing. It's very, very different. It's very, very different. I think if you can pull a rowing machine at, say, 230 per 500 meters, say 16 to 18 strokes a minute, you can row the Atlantic.
Ross Turner [00:11:22]: Anyone can row the Atlantic. It's more about body management, boat management, and weathering storms. Because you're quite literally a cork floating on the top of water. There's not a lot you can do. You go with it. There'll be rogue waves that'll push your boat sideways, roll your boat, push you downhill, down the big waves, and you just got to ride the lightning for a few months. So when people say, oh, you know, that sounds crazy, yes, it was at the time. And for us, we'd never done anything like it.
Ross Turner [00:11:55]: We've done a few land-based activities, we've done quite a bit of water-based activities and worked on water, whether it be in water skiing, we've done some sailing before. But you know what? I think the best things in life come from the unknown. And I try to describe it when we give talks, wherever it is in the world, trying to talk to somebody on the same level. What's it like rowing the Atlantic? I say to them, describe the color red. If your viewers there, like it, try and describe the color red. It's always a bit brown, but it's not orange. It's your own experience and you've gone and done it, then you'll start understanding what it's like, to do it. And I've always said, we've all been there when we're.
Ross Turner [00:12:38]: We've said good night to mates, whether it's at school, whether it's, I don't know, home. And then one of you, your mates knocks on the door and goes, come on, we're going out for a beer and you're in your pajamas, you're half in bed and yet it ends up being one of the best nights out. They're spontaneous, not planned, and you're like, actually, that's what adventure is. That's what the unknown is.
Ben Greenfield [00:13:00]: Hopefully not still in your pajamas.
Ross Turner [00:13:03]: Yeah. Just imagine that unknown. Imagine for us getting into this rowing boat, the start of that race. We had two months ahead of us, at least. What's it going to be like? Just embrace it. It's going to be that night out, every single morning, every single day, and every single night.
Ben Greenfield [00:13:19]: Dude, what a life. That's crazy. I have said for some time that I think to live life to the fullest, it's important to have something on the calendar that scares you for that year. It could be an open mic night for poetry or guitar. It could be learning a new language, or traveling somewhere new. For me, it's always a physical challenge. Me and my twin sons are training right now for the Spartan Race in Austin, Texas, in June, and then a Wim Hof retreat in Germany in December. And if I don't have something like that on the calendar, I won't push myself in the gym, I won't wake up early in the morning and do breath work in the sauna, and I won't feel like I'm.
Ben Greenfield [00:14:01]: Like I'm really going outside my comfort zone or making smoke come out of my ears or my body in some way. But you guys have taken it to a. A whole new level with these adventures and the experiments. These are super interesting, experiments. You know, as I mentioned in the introduction, I think the way I found you guys was through an article where you go head to head, testing your body. And I want to talk about some of these experiments because what you found was super interesting. I think the one I first saw was using weights versus bodyweight training. Tell me about that one.
Ross Turner [00:14:36]: Yeah, so this came out of lockdown. The lockdown affected everyone globally. Gyms weren't open, and we've done a couple of experiments before. So, to give the viewers context, the idea around it was to learn something new, to be in, to give something back to our audience, people who might read it in dot coms, magazines, etcetera. Being twins and being genetically identical, we thought, why don't we question some of these norms? You know, is red meat good? Is bodyweight better than normal? Yeah. So we just wanted to say, well, let's try and question the paradigm and see if we uncover anything exceptional, unextraordinary, extraordinary. And so, in lockdown, we thought, right, nobody can get to the gym. So why don't we see if bodyweight, we've heard lots about it.
Ross Turner [00:15:27]: There's a big craze. Body weights, are really, really good for you. It's healthy for you. You're far more mobile, you're light, you're athletic, you're a bit like a rock climber, but you've got the strength of bodybuilders, all of that stuff. So we thought, right, let's do a twelve-week study where we eat exactly the same or very similar calorie intake. And one of us goes bodyweight, and one of us goes weighted. So we found an old gym set at home, set up a program out, and trained five days a week. So kind of three on day off, two on day off, three on, you know, and we did, I say studies.
Ross Turner [00:16:06]: We did our physiological tests before, during and after so we could see a profile of what was happening.
Ben Greenfield [00:16:14]: And by the way, just so I can interrupt real quick, what were you actually looking at when you say physiological tests?
Ross Turner [00:16:20]: Sorry, yeah, so we were looking at just a general spectrum. So muscle mass, fat.
Hugo Turner [00:16:30]: Deadlifts, one bench max, how many press-ups, how many sit ups? So a bit of strength and a bit of endurance test.
Ross Turner [00:16:39]: Yeah. And then got it at the beginning from the top of my head, I remember trying to do it and bearing in mind a lot of our twelve-week experiments come off the back of an expedition, so we're not that conditioned. We're not. Wouldn't say healthy. So we did. I think I took my deadlift from 100 kilos, from very little training and coming off the back of an expedition, so not really that prepped to do a twelve-week bodyweight program. So Ross myself was just bodyweight. I didn't touch a single weight for twelve weeks.
Ross Turner [00:17:14]: I increased my deadlift by 40 kilos.
Ben Greenfield [00:17:19]: What kind of exercises were you doing? Because obviously it's hard to simulate a deadlift with bodyweight.
Ross Turner [00:17:25]: Yeah, single leg toe touches, just bodyweight. That's the only real standing hamstring activation. I did glute bridges lying down and literally just squeezing your bum, one leg, two legs, slow reps, high reps, and it was just that simple process of activating the muscles and just getting them used to being used.
Ben Greenfield [00:17:50]: What about grip? Were you doing any like hangs or bodyweight pull-ups or anything like that?
Ross Turner [00:17:54]: Doing pull-ups? Yeah, doing pull-ups, which is probably one of our worst activities because we're quite long and we've got kind of rowers bodies, big, big legs, not big arms. So, yeah, we did pull-ups, but everything across the board for my bodyweight went up and I certainly felt as healthy and as lean as I had done at any time when I've been lifting weights. And Hugo on the weighted, certainly saw a better increase in performance across the board. But if you take into account that I hadn't done any weights whatsoever, I was probably 1015, 20% performance behind him across the board. From deadlifts to pull-ups, max reps, press-ups, Mac reps, max reps. So certainly when people say, oh, I don't have a gym, there's no point, no, totally wrong. Go and do as much exercise as you can, whether it's walking, whether it's literally just touching your toes. Single leg deadlift whether it's doing as many press-ups as you can to failure and then doing that, doing something.
Ross Turner [00:19:01]: Body weight is absolutely amazing in terms of what results you can expect.
Ben Greenfield [00:19:06]: What did you guys see in terms of the difference as far as actual muscle was concerned?
Ross Turner [00:19:11]: Muscle mass still, certainly, I think I dropped body fat and increased muscle by, say, one or two kilos for sure. Hugo saw similar performances with his weight and certainly gained a little bit more in terms of muscle mass. But over a twelve-week period, certainly a lot of people on social were saying, well, you guys need to do it for twelve months, six months, twelve months to get that real set of results. But for us, the twelve-week works because we have commercial projects and expeditions that we go off on. And in that twelve weeks, three months, we can usually work within the time period between our expeditions. And that's why it's twelve weeks. We'd love to do six months, but I think some of our projects, old versus new, and all of those would certainly take a wonderful turn. If we could get more data, that'd be really good.
Ben Greenfield [00:20:14]: Yeah, I mean, twelve weeks is reasonable, especially when you consider the fact that musculoskeletal adaptations to training really significantly kick in at about the four to six-week mark. Right. Not, not six months in or eight months in. You get stronger. The neuromuscular adaptations occur within two to four weeks. Yeah, it's just four to six weeks before you start to see the changes. So twelve weeks to me seems reasonable. What would have been interesting? Have you guys ever heard of Blood Flow Restriction training? BFR training?
Ross Turner [00:20:44]: Yeah, I've seen bits of it where they basically just restrict blood flow and then train on it.
Ben Greenfield [00:20:49]: Yeah, because I use that pretty extensively when I travel. You know, because a lot of times you just have like a rusty set of dumbbells at an old elliptical trainer from the, from the eighties in a lot of these hotel gyms. So blood flow restriction training with bodyweight is very similar to weight training, superior to just bodyweight training. That would have been an interesting component of that as well. And, you know, this experiment reminds me of research that's primarily been done by this guy named Brad Schoenfeld, who's done a lot of high volume, low weight, low volume, high weight comparisons and found that ultimately in everyone, despite extremely trained individuals, really, it just comes down to time under tension and the amount of fatigue that the muscle experiences. So, sure, you got to do more reps and possibly spend a little bit more time training if you're doing bodyweight, but your guys's results seem to be similar to what Brad's found in his research.
Ross Turner [00:21:51]: Yeah, certainly for us you've kind of hit the nail on the head is time and attention, and a lot of people, there's a lot of, there are a lot of articles, particularly in the UK, that kind of regurgitate themselves. How do you change things up? How do you get things more efficient? I think time is under tension. Know if you slowed your workout depending on what you're doing, for us it's very much endurance-based. And so we're not looking for volume, we're not looking for a mass of one particular muscle or pair of muscle groups. We're looking for just overall general health to get us into that really efficient zone where we can go off for months at a time like the Atlantic, and have a massive calorie deficit. There's no point for us in putting on ten kilos of lean muscle mass to then go and eat 1000 calories per day hiking or rowing or flying across the country because our body is just going to go into total meltdown and shock and go, well, you were giving me 5000 calories of good nutrition for the last four months, five months of prep and training and now you're doing nothing. So for us, if we can stay on two and a half, 2000 calories, get super fit, efficient, and then just drop that deficit, calorie deficit by say, 500 calories, super efficient for us.
Ben Greenfield [00:23:11]: Yeah. Yeah. And related to that, you guys also did a similar but slightly different test, I believe, or experiment where you did high volume versus low volume. Is that correct?
Ross Turner [00:23:24]: We've done. What have we done to Nick? We've done 20 minutes. Yeah, 20-minute versus 40-minute workouts. So we were in the gym for 40 minutes. One of us was 20 minutes. This was a really fun experiment for us because it brought in that dynamic of we weren't doing exactly the same time and going, right, cool, high fives, out to the gym and get back in the office. It was right. We've just done a HIIT workout now one of us has to stay and do it again.
Ross Turner [00:23:57]: And when you get to doing these experiments, we don't want to do six to eight weeks of building up into it. And then the last four weeks are quite intense and we're at a level where we want to be. It's, we want to really push ourselves quite quickly to get the results or at least show what's happening to our bodies. So yeah, the high volume, low volume 20 minutes versus 40 minutes workout was really interesting because we knew. Did we know what the results were?
Hugo Turner [00:24:30]: I think we're inherently lazy in terms of us just generally. I know. I think the human population has found ways to reduce input to maximize output in every form of life, every area of life.
Ben Greenfield [00:24:47]: The so called MED, made popular by guys like Tim Ferriss. Right, minimum effective dose.
Hugo Turner [00:24:53]: Yeah, exactly. And training for us and for everybody listening, I'm sure their training, they've got to come up with new ways of training to keep it motivational to look at minor increases and improve efficiency. And it was really born out of that, I think, and also the underlying question which was, well, what if we actually train for half the amount of time? How much performance will we lose?
Ross Turner [00:25:24]: Or increase?
Hugo Turner [00:25:25]: Oh, yeah, or increase. And through this, 40 minutes, 20 minutes. And we were trying to toy with an hour versus 30 minutes. We were thinking of 15 minutes versus half an hour. And we put it out to our audience and we said, what timeframe should we look at? Generally speaking, 20 minutes, 40 minutes was the rough ballpark figure because a lot of our audience in the UK have day jobs. An hour. You can't really fit that into a lunch break. People have got young families.
Hugo Turner [00:25:55]: 20 minutes and 40 minutes seemed to be like a nice balance between both. And it was eye-opening. And let's just say this now, and this is just. This is our own experience, Ben, so I'm not going suddenly to say everyone, right, you need to go and do this, but from what we experienced and all the data that we tracked, there wasn't really much of an uplift in performance training for 40 minutes than there was 20 minutes. So our training program really lasts anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes.
Ben Greenfield [00:26:28]: Now, what's interesting is that when you look at data on, let's say, muscle maintenance, vo two max, etcetera, it's actually shockingly low, or at least lower than what most people think. Amount of volume that's necessary to maintain muscle or to maintain vo two max or mitochondrial density or anything like that. Typically for a good, it's usually up to about three months or so. Once you get past the three-month mark, it seems that slightly greater volume wins out. But at least from what I've seen in larger studies, the extent to which higher volume wins out is not that significant compared to low volume. And so if you're looking for a time hack, I mean, this is, you know, there are companies in the US, like, one popular one that's sponsored this show before is Carol Bike. Right. So it's a ten to 15-minute workout where you just have like two all-out ten to twenty seconds sprints while you're riding this bike.
Ben Greenfield [00:27:30]: Right. They advertise as a time-hacked, sweat-free workout. But it sounds to me like your guys' results are pretty similar in terms of people probably needing, assuming they're actually doing the work when they're in there, to spend less time in the gym or working out than what they might think to at least maintain decent levels of fitness.
Ross Turner [00:27:49]: Yeah, you've absolutely nailed it on your head. You can do a lot more with a lot less. You don't need to go and do these super, super time, heavyweight, heavy hour-and-a-half sessions, I think for 99% of the normal population. For us, if you can experiment a little bit, if somebody says, oh, twelve reps doing this tempo, that's exactly what you need. That's perfect for you. I think just experiment for us. These experiments really have shown that not one size fits all. Go and find out what works best for you.
Ross Turner [00:28:25]: The results for the 40 versus 20 minutes, we did our weight pretty much every single day as we went through the experiment. And on our website, theturnertwins dot co dot UK comma, you can go into the fitness side there. The graphs or the graph for tracked weight over three months are literally identical.
Hugo Turner [00:28:47]: But I think we also need to say that this, we're nothing, let's say high performance athletes. I wouldn't say we're Olympics.
Ross Turner [00:28:55]: Speak for yourself.
Hugo Turner [00:28:57]: We're not Olympic athletes. We're just trying to keep a relatively middle to high level of fitness. So this is more looking at the nonelite performance athlete. And for us, this was a really, really informative and good experiment to understand how our bodies react to this type of training.
Ben Greenfield [00:29:19]: Yeah, there's some crossover though, I mean, even to higher levels of competition. Like, you know, I've told this story, I think, before in the podcast, but one of the ways that I got into doing what I do now, which is more work online coaching, online doing online programs, etcetera, was when I used to run a bunch of personal training gyms and studios. I always trained my clients using this minimum effective dose of exercise approach. And I was super into the Ironman Triathlon. And I used almost purely high-intensity interval training for Ironman triathlon training, eight to 10 hours per week versus the standard 15, gosh, up to 25. Like I would have peers who would go to the pool and swim a would do ten by 50 all out with those fifties being as hard as possible. Or I would have friends who would do like the two-and-a-half, three-hour slow, you know, horrific masochistic frowning face run. And I would go out to the track and do like, ten, 400 meters repeats, and that would be my workout, and I'd be done in, you know, sometimes an hour or less.
Ben Greenfield [00:30:29]: I wound up competing in qualifying for and competing in the Hawaii Ironman World Championship six times. And I actually took that same program created into this online program called the Triathlon Dominator. I think my tagline was to cross the Ironman finish line with a smile on your face without neglecting your hobbies and your friends and your family and your career, etcetera. , and it was successful. And so, you know, I've been into this idea of minimalist training, even for higher performance events for a while. So I think you guys are really on to something.
Ross Turner [00:31:02]: Yeah, I certainly think it's just. I know I've just said it, but just experimenting and finding out you can read all you want. But for us, we know exactly when our sugar levels are around 3.2 because we've used this kind of arms patches that you've got, and using their mobile data, you can just connect. And when you start feeling a little blurry and a little kind of all tired and a bit spaced out, you know exactly what your blood sugar level is. If you experiment on a small level. We're not saying go and change your life and become amateur scientists. Go and find out whether you feel good eating a banana before or whether you want to go and eat a shitload of cookies before the gym. You know, go and experiment and you'll be amazed at what works for you isn't what works for somebody else.
Ross Turner [00:31:46]: And just because dare I say, an expert has said it, yes, there's probably merit and grounding to what they do. Just twist what they're saying a little bit and make it work for you.
Hugo Turner [00:31:55]: But we are also twins, so we've got each other to level off. And I think that's what motivates us is that even through the. What have we done now? In four experiments, we've learned so much about how our bodies react to different types of fitness. So we've done a vegan versus meat diet. We've done plant protein versus animal protein. This bodyweighted versus weighted, and we're learning so much about it, and it's really improved the way we use our time, training for the better.
Ben Greenfield [00:32:28]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I want to talk about these nutrition experiments. What you said about self-quantification really rings true to me, especially regarding, like, a blood glucose monitor like this, because, you know, as you guys can see, I walk on my treadmill a lot while I'm podcasting. And I went for a few months when I first started walking during the podcast, feeling very lightheaded about 15 to 20 minutes into the show. And I usually have my breakfast before the show. And by using this monitor, it turns out my blood sugar, sometimes 15, 20 minutes in, would be down in the 50s, and I'd be a little dizzy and would have difficulty focusing on the guest or coming up with something witty or intelligent or halfway lucid to say. And so based on that, I thought, well, maybe before my morning workout, before I have breakfast, I'll just elevate my blood levels of ketones.
Ben Greenfield [00:33:23]: So if my blood sugar drops, I've got a second fuel. So then I started taking a shot of these, like, exogenous, drinkable ketones. I don't know if you guys have ever seen these before, but they kind of give your body a fourth source of fuel. And the problem completely disappeared. Even if my blood sugar dropped, if I tested it now, it's probably down in the sixties, which is low. But because I've got a bunch of ketones in my bloodstream, I don't have that hypoglycemic post-breakfast dip that I seem to have that attacks me during podcasts, present anymore. And I just knew that by testing, and some people might think, well, maybe I've got low oxygen, or I'm low on sleep, or I don't have enough food. But turns out for me, I was just freaking super hypoglycemic during podcasts and just shifting the ketones.
Ben Greenfield [00:34:13]: Fix that.
Ross Turner [00:34:13]: It's really interesting to say hypoglycemic. There are so many times where once you start, and I'd probably say the best advice is to go and get one of these glucose monitors because you can just basically just use your app, tells you exactly what you are, you know, how you're feeling with a number of your sugar. For us, we've used it multiple times now with multiple experiments, and I think people need to start getting a little bit more connected with their bodies and what's actually going on. So, for me now, I know in my current state, I've just had a little coffee, I'm probably about three and a half, 3.6 on our scale. I don't know what you are, but I think having that measure going, oh, I know exactly what my body's doing is so informative, it's probably the biggest thing you could do because you've just said, people grab a coffee because they need to feel awake and then they'll go and have a biscuit and then they get that massive sugar crash, and then they'll have more coffee to counteract the sugary biscuits. And it's just all wretch and no vomit and you're not really getting anywhere. And that's a classic. Well, because there are biscuits in the office and because people have traditionally had coffee in the morning to wake you up.
Ross Turner [00:35:29]: Well, that's what you should do. Well, why, like, question it? And this is what we love doing as twins. Question, why are you having a coffee? Why don't you have some sort of, plant-based chicory coffee alternative? Or why don't you dare, I say, have a bolognese for breakfast? Yeah. Probably pretty uncool around your friends to say I had bolognese rather than a croissant, but find out what works. And I've been eating, I say pasta. When I was playing rugby, I was eating pasta for breakfast regularly. And it's so much. I was much happier and healthier and had more energy throughout the morning having a main meal rather than say, honey on toast or something.
Ben Greenfield [00:36:08]: Yeah, you must not be Italian. It's one thing I should note for listeners. You said a three is something. I think your millimolars per liter for blood glucose were milligrams per deciliter. Over here. I think you'd, what you just cited would be somewhere around 85 to 90, I think. So, you know, still, still a decent blood glucose value. So that leads me to another question I wanted to ask you guys about these nutrition experiments.
Ben Greenfield [00:36:34]: Which one did you do first? The animal versus the plant protein for like, you know, comparing protein sources or the vegan versus the meat-based.
Hugo Turner [00:36:43]: We did the protein, plant protein versus animal protein. And again, this was a really, really interesting one. We thought that there would be a lot of change between the two just based on the fact that one's come from animals, one's come from plants. There was a lot of conversation when we did this pre-Covid.
Ross Turner [00:37:09]: Pre-Covid, yeah. Particularly in the UK market, there was a massive amount of people saying plant-based. Um, it's much better.
Ben Greenfield [00:37:17]: Right. That movie Game Changers, I think, really fueled that also.
Ross Turner [00:37:22]: Yeah, exactly that. I think it was around that time, wasn't it?
Hugo Turner [00:37:25]: Yeah, it would have been.
Ross Turner [00:37:27]: And we just wanted to basically simply ask, is there any difference between the two? And if so, over our twelve-week program, again, we're. When we start these projects or twelve-week programs, we do our weights and stats before. And usually, we're fairly the same if there is a little bit of difference. Say he's carrying a kilo more, maybe two kilos more. Whether it's across fat, whether it's across muscle, that's fine. As long as that difference is reflected and taken into account at the end, then you can start seeing the differences in comparing. It was really interesting. Again, the graphs of across bodyweight change, whether it's fat, whether it's muscle mass, remain very, very similar in profile.
Ross Turner [00:38:16]: So there'll be days when we'd have we put on a little bit more weight for some reason, or retain more weight. There'll be days when we both dropped together. But the really interesting thing is the graphs did follow each other and sometimes they went away from each other when you didn't expect it. And for us, I think at the end of the twelve-week program, there wasn't any real difference in meat or plant-based protein. And, you know, what's that classic expression in the documentary? How'd you get as strong as an ox when you didn't eat any meat? And the guy's like, well, when did you last see an ox eat meat? Eats grass?
Ben Greenfield [00:38:55]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm curious about the animal and the plant protein piece. Was this like a post-workout supplement, one that was like whey protein versus a rice protein? Was this just a general dietary approach or how did you set it up?
Ross Turner [00:39:09]: Yeah, it was exactly that. It was post, post protein. So we kept on the same diet. And I know the purists out there, which there are, you know, a lot of them are saying, oh, you know, if you're going to go one plant-based protein, one animal protein, you need to kind of separate that. There are so many different areas, as you understand with these experiments, I'm sure people say, ah, you know, Ben, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? Did you really have to add this? You know, there's so many. Yes, there are so many different ways of getting results here. For us, there's a general overall goal of just seeing what happens, letting the graphs speak for themselves, being curious.
Ben Greenfield [00:39:49]: Yeah, well, you're right. You guys aren't advertising yourselves as running, like, peer-reviewed human clinical, double-blinded research studies. You're just twins and kind of throwing a few noodles at the wall and getting some general data out there. But what I was asking you about was, you know, assuming you were doing this post-workout, was one of you doing like a whey protein or animal-based protein shake, and then one of you doing a plant-based protein shake, keeping the diet the same besides that. And then seeing what happened to, I'm assuming, muscle?
Ross Turner [00:40:20]: Yeah, exactly that. So we just, we're just doing shakes half an hour or less straight after a workout. The workouts were exactly the same. Loads of compound lifts. That's what we like. There's no point doing a bicep curl when you can do a bend and snap clean and snatch, whatever it is. So for us, it was just looking at that 30-minute window 30 minutes after exercise, and that is almost another.
Hugo Turner [00:40:45]: The experiment itself is trying to work out the most. I mean, obviously you want to eat straight after your workout, but what if you accidentally ate regularly 45 minutes after your workout? How does that affect your training?
Ross Turner [00:41:00]: Half an hour. So two hours? Yeah, you'd lean out really a lot, but yes. If your viewers have any suggestions on what experiments we could do next, we're all open ears.
Ben Greenfield [00:41:11]: Yeah. Yeah. So was the animal and the plant protein, did it turn out to just be awash, like, pretty similar across the board?
Ross Turner [00:41:18]: Yeah, yeah, for us, definitely. It was the, I said, limited spectrum of results that we, studied before, during, and after. There was no tangible difference between the two. I certainly think for me, on the plant-based, Ross was on the plant-based shake, I felt actually better on plant-based protein than I would have done. It was just a pea protein. Definitely better on that than an animal protein. Do you mix it up or are you fairly consistently on one protein?
Ben Greenfield [00:41:57]: Well, I eat an omnivorous diet. Typically, if you're on an omnivorous diet, the source of the protein post-workout should matter a little less because, by the end of the day, you're getting a pretty large set of different amino acids if you're mixing up meat, grains, legumes, etcetera. But what's interesting is this reminds me of a study that came out a few years ago that showed that the superiority that some studies have shown of an animal-based protein, like egg or whey or something with a more complete amino acid profile, seems to be washed out when compared to a plant protein-based post-workout intake that is combined with digestive enzymes. It's kind of interesting. There's something about adding enzymes, like a rice protein or a pea protein. You know, the same type of digestive enzymes you just buy as a supplement to take before a meal to help with digestion. That seems to upregulate the bioavailability of the amino acids to make the animal protein very similar to the plant protein. I think, you know, for me, the difference would be, and what I would want to see to really know for sure, right?
Ben Greenfield [00:43:08]: Would be a plant protein post-workout consumed by someone who is not eating anything but plants the rest of the day compared to a plant protein post-workout with somebody who was also including animal sources during their diet the rest of the day. Does that make sense?
Ross Turner [00:43:24]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Greenfield [00:43:25]: You kind of have to do like vegan, you have to have a few arms, you have to have like vegan and plant-based protein post-workout. Omnivore and plant-based protein post-workout. Vegan and animal-based protein post-workout, and then omnivore and animal-based protein post-workout to get a full picture. But regardless, you guys basically saw that in people who are eating a similar diet that's omnivorous. The plant protein post-workout doesn't seem to be much different than the animal protein. As far as muscle response.
Ross Turner [00:43:55]: No, pretty identical. Again, if we needed to do a greater study, you'd go for probably six months, you'd then get a lot more blood work, you'd get gut microbe, you do the whole profile, which I think.
Hugo Turner [00:44:08]: Would be really interesting.
Ross Turner [00:44:09]: But again, for us, we've got this commercial timeframe and there's no point in running an experiment for twelve weeks or more when we're away on an expedition or in an area where we just physically can't get there.
Hugo Turner [00:44:21]: One of the things that we've always been surprised at, and yes, we're twins, but we always think there are very different or more differences than we actually find, whereas we are very, very similar, and that's been one thing that surprises us,
Ross Turner [00:44:38]: is that our data will peak,
Hugo Turner [00:44:41]: And trough, at exactly the same time when we haven't changed anything on the program. The diet doesn't change massively, yet we will go up and down at the same time. And it's interesting that even twins, that, yes, we're both living in London at the time, we still go through these, you know, completely what seems disconnected events for, and we still can't work out why our bodies do that. And maybe that's our genetics kicking in and reacting exactly the same way to the gym program, but we haven't changed anything in the gym program. We'll keep it relatively the same. So that's been really interesting to actually see, oddly, how similar we are.
Ross Turner [00:45:27]: We did a vegan versus meat diet a couple of years ago for Men's Health UK and it got published online. And then for us, the online globe, I want to say viral kingdom, it just went mad. It's like 20-25 languages and it. It's just been for the third time, I think, posted on LADbible again, twins doing this experiment and it just keeps going round and round again and people from all over the world are getting in contact saying, can we get the results? Can we get your feedback? Can you do an interview for this magazine or.com? it's really weird when you look at the graphs. It's not like one of us has a big peak of way above the average for that particular graph profile, and then two weeks later somebody else or hug has a profile peak. The peaks and the troughs are exactly the same time, but totally unrelated, but again, all twinness. And so anyway, it's all very weird.
Ben Greenfield [00:46:26]: Who followed the plant-based and who followed the animal-base?
Hugo Turner [00:46:29]: So Hugo, me followed the plant-based. And initially, starting out, it was just going to be meats, like cut meats and dairy out of the diet and snack however you wanted to snack. And then for whatever reason, I thought if we're going to do this wholeheartedly and get some actual relatively interesting data from this experiment, I've got to go fully vegan. So cut out anything that contained animal products. So crisps, like so many crisps, biscuits, snacks, they all contain some sort of dairy powder, anything, all kind of.
Ross Turner [00:47:16]: All.
Hugo Turner [00:47:16]: That kind of stuff. So yeah, we, I was like a full vegan for three months and it was relatively painless, I want to say. But we had a great, a great company in the UK that was sending us the food box and things like that.
Ben Greenfield [00:47:33]: And so what did you guys find with the animal versus the plant?
Ross Turner [00:47:36]: So we did a lot of gut bacteria health. So before and after setting off poo samples, doing all that fun, fun, energetic stuff in there in that science department, and when people say, oh, I've gone vegan because it's healthier and it's just the two of us. And again, we're not holding anyone accountable, it's just what we found that's really not the case. So there are benefits and pros. I think the biggest benefit we found is that your microbiome diversity when you're a vegan because you're eating a lot less food, like the spectrum of food or access to foods you're allowed to eat is a lot less.
Ben Greenfield [00:48:15]: By the way, that surprises me because I would have expected, you know, a wide variety of plants, maybe herbs, spices, etcetera, potentially a large amount of fiber, I would have expected more microbial diversity in the plant base. But that's not what you guys saw.
Hugo Turner [00:48:29]: Well, I would agree with that statement, but it's also the education of a vegan. As I was new to veganism, my. Well, I say culinary imagination wasn't trained and I was struggling to find it.
Ben Greenfield [00:48:45]: I got it. Yeah. So maybe a slightly improperly comprised, plant-based die that is not inclusive of a wide variety of compounds, could lead to imbalances or deficiencies in the gut microbiome balance.
Hugo Turner [00:49:01]: Yeah, exactly. If you said to anyone that has an omnivore diet, right, go vegan, fully vegan, tomorrow, they would probably really struggle to come up with creative ideas to get all the different sources in their diet.
Ben Greenfield [00:49:17]: They'd be having a lot of celery juice and almonds.
Hugo Turner [00:49:21]: And that was also part of the experiment. It was looking at just the convenience of a vegan diet. Is it complementary to our lifestyle? Is it accessible and can it be maintained? In London, the answer is yes. But where we grew up in the Styx, Dan Dartmoor, or if you lived out in the middle of Western Australia, is a vegan diet house realistic and sustainable? Probably not, because it's very, very difficult to get a variety of plant-based foods. But in London that does work. So there was kind of that, you know, another side that there was that other side of the experiment. But, you know, a lot of the experiment looked at the gut health and how my gut reacted to the cutting out of animal products. And then we were layering on top of that the physiological changes and tracking how, again, over twelve weeks of doing the same training program, how our bodies would change.
Ross Turner [00:50:27]: I think the biggest thing we learned from vegan versus meat was that if you want to lower your cholesterol, go vegan. We've got high cholesterol around seven, but Hugo's dropped down to under five in three months. Super good. But on the flip side of that, and I know getting access to or learning about a vegan diet was quite difficult, so didn't really know what to eat, and hence probably why the micro diversity dropped a little bit. But it also left you then more sustainable to susceptible to Crohn's disease. So there are a few again on our website, the Turnertwins dot co dot Uk. You can look up some of the graphs just for the gut health. So it's a little bit of yin and it's a little bit of yang.
Ross Turner [00:51:14]: On one side you get very good benefits, and on the other side, you might not. So it's for us. We've always said, eat the rainbow, try and be as diverse as possible in that, and then you also start looking at the social, environmental side of some food like jackfruit has to be flown halfway to the UK anyway, has to be flown a huge amount of miles or chipped a lot of miles to get into supermarkets. So do you eat local beef or do you eat jackfruit? That's come from somewhere on the other side of the world? What's more sustainable?
Ben Greenfield [00:51:45]: Right, right. Like Satya Inchi Protein and jackfruit, a lot of plant-based protein sources might be less sustainable. You could make an argument for soaking and sprouting and fermentation to unlock a lot more of the protein, but a lot of people aren't willing to do that. Did you guys notice any changes in, like, body composition or muscle or anything like that across the animal versus the plant?
Hugo Turner [00:52:09]: Yeah. So I was on the vegan diet, and my bodyweight started out maybe a kilo, kilo and a half below Ross's. And throughout the three months of training, my body weight started to drop at a pretty consistent level, finishing at about 83. So I started about 84 and a half kilos, and I went down to probably about 82, 83 kilos, whereas Ross. Ross's body weight generally went up. And so there was a big divide. And this was our first big difference in all the experiments we've had that there was a very, very clear difference.
Ross Turner [00:52:48]: For the fat as well, even though you lost. Well, the difference was three kilos. Yeah. So in the end, our fat percentage was pretty much the same. So we both average similar fat percentages.
Hugo Turner [00:53:02]: Same peaks and troughs on the fat again, as well. Exactly the same program.
Ben Greenfield [00:53:06]: Yeah. That's interesting. I think it's one of those things where you can, of course, say to the bodies in the streets, that animal protein is superior to plant for muscle gain. But I would say it makes a case for the fact that it's easier, probably, to maintain or build muscle by eating animals. If you don't want to do all the work necessary to make a plant-based diet, a more anabolic diet, you know, via hunting down a wide variety of protein sources and increasing diversity, which you learned, especially with the microbiome data, you know, taking different supplements, etcetera. So, yeah, it's almost like the animal-based protein or the. Or the animal or omnivorous approach just makes it easier. Not superior, but definitely easier.
Ross Turner [00:53:51]: Yeah, yeah.
Hugo Turner [00:53:52]: That's one of the big things that I find out. Maybe next time we do a three month plant versus meat diet.
Ross Turner [00:54:02]: The plant.
Hugo Turner [00:54:02]: Will far out exceed the performance side of a meat one, because I'll be better trained. I know where I can get all of my nutritional gains from, etcetera. So maybe I'm just a really bad veganization.
Ben Greenfield [00:54:17]: Yeah. All right. Well, I'll have to stay tuned for round two then. The real vegan versus the omnivore diet.
Ross Turner [00:54:23]: The one thing we want to do, and it's probably up there with the top three next 12-week studies, is to put the last four 12-week studies onto a table. Go right. Which was, which parts of it really benefited us. Get rid of all the negatives and go right. Yes. Body weight was really good for mobility. Great. Add that in the vegan versus meat.
Ross Turner [00:54:49]: What was really good about that? What was good about the 20 versus 40 minutes? Probably 20 minutes. And then do a culmination of all four of those experiments. The best bits try and find a twin versus twin angle in it and then go off and see if we can get even more efficient at the workouts.
Ben Greenfield [00:55:14]: Yeah, that makes sense. Have you guys ever thought about doing like a low carb, high carb one?
Ross Turner [00:55:18]: Yeah, that's literally on our, I think that's the next one we're going to do, which will be really interesting because I respond very, very well to high fat and you just get a little chubs on.
Ben Greenfield [00:55:31]: Have you guys ever actually done a genetic profile? You know, you say you respond really well to high fat and of course, there are genes that would dictate that, like maybe you don't have the APOE e4 e4 gene or, you know, you have a low inflammatory response to saturated fats or something like that. Have you guys tested your actual genetic makeup to see how similar you are genetically?
Ross Turner [00:55:51]: Nick? No. No, we haven't.
Hugo Turner [00:55:53]: It'd be quite an interesting one to do that.
Ben Greenfield [00:55:55]: You know, it was less than $200 to get, you know, do a salivary test or a blood spot test for your, for your genes. You could probably get that sponsored, by the way, by a company like True Diagnostics or something. That'd be interesting because it gives you a whole new set of data to play with. I've tested my sons and they're basically identical, except for one snip, one has a higher propensity to convert testosterone into estrogens. Besides that, they're identical genetically.
Ross Turner [00:56:22]: It's really interesting that the whole of nature nurtures of twins. Your sons are identical, yet there are differences. I know it sounds funny, but we still get a little blown away when we do some of our twin studies, particularly when we go to the Department of Twin Research in Central London and there are so many twins. And one of the doctors is talking about a set of 70-year-old twins that have just come in. They're identical in absolutely everywhere, except now one's got cancer and the other one doesn't. Yet they've quite literally lived together their entire lives, nature, natural. Why don't they both have it at the same time? Why has one not got it? Fascinating.
Ben Greenfield [00:57:03]: Yeah. So many variables there. Connection, friendships, toxin exposure. Maybe getting some kind of lime or mold or mycotoxin early in life. There's a lot there. How about these expeditions and adventures? Do you guys have anything else beyond the electric vehicle planned or anything that's, like, super notable that you've done besides rowing the Atlantic, that you think would be cool for people to know about?
Hugo Turner [00:57:27]: Well, maybe.
Ross Turner [00:57:28]: I look at a quick project we.
Hugo Turner [00:57:30]: Did a couple of years ago and then one that we're planning at the moment, but a couple of years ago, we took a yacht and converted it to a hydrogen fuel cell. To run off a hydrogen fuel cell and look at the hydrogen fuel cell energy process and the pros and cons of that. We also did a trek across the Greenland ice cap. One of us was in the old gear that the explorers 100 years ago used across the ice caps, whilst we were comparing the new and the latest technology, and food, to try and highlight how hard it was to be an explorer 100 years ago.
Ben Greenfield [00:58:09]: Oh, my gosh. Who drew the short straw on that one?
Ross Turner [00:58:12]: Well, exactly, the short straw. This is exactly what we're talking about for us. It's, you know, when you see somebody in leather shoes, bamboo poles, wooden skis, tweed trousers, woolly pulley jumper, you know, you look at the difference and you go, well, obviously, branding science and materials engineering, diet, all of that stuff, lightweight space tech, the modern stuff is going to be much better. Carbon fiber poles, wooden poles, all that. Course that's going to be better, right? And then you look at the data and you're like, holy shit. Like, half of the stuff we're wearing, the old stuff, is better than modern stuff, you start understanding why that is. And that's because the knowledge of how to operate, wear, and use that old woolly pulley, leather shoes, bamboo poles, all of that stuff 100 years ago is now lost. So it's understanding the limitations.
Ross Turner [00:59:10]: And yes, say zero degrees to minus ten, you have one layer of the woolly pulley, minus ten to minus fifteen you've got to put another shirt on. There are those stages. Whereas, these days you can buy a thousand pound down jacket that takes you from minus five to minus forty fairly comfortably. So it's just understanding how your kit works, but also it works for a reason. We've all got grandparents who've worn woolly pulleys in the garden or walking the dog, you know, there's a method behind that madness. It does work. And this is what we love about these experiments that we do, whether it's in the gym with the twelve weeks or whether it's out in the field on expeditions, is, you know, you look at it side by side and people laugh and they're like, oh, who drew the short straw? I'd probably say modern only just gets the short straw, but it is the short straw. And we've gone on to do other expeditions in other environments where we've done old versus new.
Ross Turner [01:00:06]: And this is where we're trying to develop a bit of a tv idea, is going off into these different environments. Could this person have survived if they had old stuff, or would it be more beneficial to have new stuff and all that stuff?
Ben Greenfield [01:00:19]: That is a great idea for a show. I would watch that. And then part of this reminds me a lot of it probably comes down to grit and perseverance and the possibility that humans in the past might have been a little bit harder, so to speak, just based on lifestyle being more physically demanding. Like, I think about back to Ironman, not to kick that horse to death, but like Dave Scott, and Mike Allen, these guys are riding old, heavy steel bikes and yet laying down bike times in the Ironman that are comparable to what probably 90% of the field on these super tricked out carbon fiber electronic shifters are doing, because these guys just, they trained hard and worked hard until they could get by on just pure heavy steel, you know?
Ross Turner [01:01:04]: Yeah. And it's, again, it's. We question it. Why do people, when they train, go and buy a super lightweight carbon bike, and use their old one? Because surely that's going to make it harder, right?
Ben Greenfield [01:01:13]: Yeah. And plus you could probably be better spending that money on supplement and diet, you know, lose four pounds and get all that money back that you spent on the lighter bike.
Ross Turner [01:01:21]: Yeah, it's really, once we get into the idea of questioning, questioning it and just maybe pushing against the status quo of what somebody said or what just is the norm for us, why don't you wear some heavier clothing? Why don't you cycle a heavy steel bike? Why don't you go and, dare I say, wear a T-shirt swimming, just to make it that little bit more resistive, make it hard for you to train, and then when you get to the start line, go and wear something super lightweight, super slippery. Go and ride a bicycle that's one kilo.
Ben Greenfield [01:01:59]: Yeah, it's so true. My trick was I used to train with the same bike because the biomechanics are important, but I'd use an old crappy set of nonaerodynamic wheels and tires that weren't as inflated as the ones I'd use on race day. And even that made a big difference. Like, once I got the race wheels on, it felt like a whole different animal. So that's a really good point. And how about anything crazy you guys have planned in the next few months here?
Hugo Turner [01:02:23]: Yeah, there's a project we're planning this year which is focusing again on battery electric technology, which is to set the altitude world record with an electric paramotor above the French out. So we're going to go and have some fun, test some technology, look at the performance of battery technology within the aviation space. We've got another project planned, I think, in South America, which aims to set the altitude world record with an electric off-roader. And yeah, at the moment we're looking at balancing our time between experimenting and testing with new emerging technologies, particularly battery technology. I'm sure we've probably got another hydrogen fuel cell expedition project in the pipelines as well as looking at probably another physical fitness comparison. And I think we're probably going to go down the high fat, high car. But it'd be interesting if your listeners have any thoughts and ideas on what our next.
Ben Greenfield [01:03:33]: That's a great idea. Unleash the beast, you guys. If you're listening to the show, notes are at BenGreenfieldlife.com/turnertwins go there. Give us some ideas. Leave your questions your comments and your feedback for Ross and Hugo. Give us some ideas. I don't know, climbing Everest naked versus clothed, or swimming with the sharks versus swimming with the goldfish, you name it. Just throw your ideas out there.
Ben Greenfield [01:03:56]: And their website, by the way, is Turnertwins dot co dot Uk. Even just the four experiments we talked about, the high volume, low volume, the bodyweight versus weighted, the animal versus the plant protein, and the omnivore versus the vegan, those are incredible reads on their own. So I'll link to all those in the show notes. Guys, this has been incredible. You're an inspiration and I'll be watching you from afar and rooting for you on your next adventure and in your next experiment, too, to see who gets the pizza and the pasta and the bread and who gets stuck with, I don't know, macadamia nuts.
Ross Turner [01:04:30]: Well, it's funny you say that. These are all experiments and ideas. What are they saying? Isotonic drinks versus a beer for rehydration. There's method in the madness. They do say that a beer is just as good.
Ben Greenfield [01:04:46]: It is actually, you're right. Potentially some diminishing returns once you get to a certain amount of beer. Yeah, you're right. Some of the things you find, they're just, they're just crazy. I used to do a lot of writing for different fitness magazines and training magazines, so I was always finding these strange examples. And I still love it when I stumble across guys like you who are up to this stuff. So guys, thank you so much. For everybody listening in again, it's bengreenfieldlife.com/turnertwins, Ross, Hugo.
Ben Greenfield [01:05:14]: Go get some sleep, guys.
Ross Turner [01:05:15]: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Ben Greenfield [01:05:17]: All right, I'll talk to you guys later, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Ross and Hugo, the Turner twins signing up from Ben Greenfield Life. Have an amazing week.
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