Identical twins Hugo and Ross Turner have once again volunteered their bodies for research, testing how different eating patterns and day-to-day habits can change weight and body composition.
The brothers have become known for putting themselves through controlled challenges, including a 12-week trial where one followed a vegan diet while the other ate meat.
That earlier experiment saw Hugo, on plant-based meals, drop 4lb and reduce body fat by one percent, while Ross, on a meat-based diet, added 10lb of muscle and increased body fat by two percent.
They’ve also previously compared high-carb and high-fat approaches.
This time, they ran another three-month experiment with each twin following a different routine, and the outcomes were striking.
Over the course of the study, Hugo lost 11lb, while Ross put on almost 9lb.
What makes the comparison especially interesting is that both men were consuming roughly 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day—around what an active adult male might typically target.
So how did one twin drop a significant amount of weight while the other ended up heavier, despite similar calorie totals?
Both plans were described as mostly “clean,” and Ross wasn’t eating fast food every day. The major difference came down to timing: Ross had significantly more flexibility because he spread his intake across a 16-hour eating window.
Hugo, on the other hand, followed a 16-hour fast and ate only within an eight-hour window—meaning he had to fit the same 2,500–3,000 calories into a much shorter period.
While it might sound like an easy hack for fat loss, Hugo said the schedule brought plenty of drawbacks.
Breaking down his routine, Hugo said: “I think I ate around 10 or 11 in the morning, and then I was finishing eating around 6 or 7 in the evening.”
He explained why meeting the calorie goal could become a grind: “So, let’s say you’re eating breakfast at 10, lunch at 12/1pm, then (on a normal cycle) you’re probably eating at 6/7pm for supper. You’ve then got to try to make up the rest of those calories in a five-hour window in the afternoon.”
“It was really hard,” Hugo added. “In all honesty I was probably struggling to hit the 2,500-3,000 calorie mark because you’re essentially eating every two hours.”
He also found the social side difficult. Because he stopped eating after a set time, evenings out meant he couldn’t join in with food or drinks.
Overall, Hugo described eating for only eight hours and fasting for 16 as being ‘pretty horrible’ and said that trying to eat 3,000 calories in the short amount of time was ‘really bloody hard’.
As for what he ate, Hugo said his typical day included scrambled eggs and toast or porridge with nuts and berries for breakfast, sardines with rice and vegetables at lunch, and a ‘big meal’ for dinner that was loaded with carbs and lots of protein.
He also relied on protein shakes to help reach his daily calorie target more easily.
Ross—who was also aiming for 2,500 to 3,000 calories—had more leeway. He could do things like toast with jelly for breakfast, and for main meals he said he’d eat ‘a spectrum of fish, vegetables, red meat, and white meat’ as well of ‘lots of pasta dishes’.
That flexibility also allowed Ross to factor in the occasional curry or pizza as a ‘treat’.
Despite how challenging Hugo found it, he said he would consider fasting again if the priority was losing weight.
Ross also said he’d be open to doing it in future, noting the pair have done well with fasting before (outside of this latest experiment).
“Fasting works quite well for us,” Ross said of him and his brother, adding that they ‘perform better’ when fasting.
He continued: “Normally we’re eating kind of higher fat foods as well with that, so olive oils, cheeses, fatty meats, etc. So we’re not eating the volume, but we’re still getting the calories.
“So, if we said ‘right, we need to lose weight’, I would fast again.”