Yep. 16-8 fasting is just, skip breakfast and don't snack at midnight. It's just an easy way to restrict calories.

And I know that there's no science behind this, but anecdotally I feel better when I give my digestive system a bit of a break.

It's not terrible after you get used to it. I just naturally started skipping breakfast when I moved out, read the meme, thought there might be something to this. Did a little reading and was on the daily type for about two years and have fallen into the weekly type in the last year or so naturally. I lost tons of weight, granted I started working out too. But I've been maintaining it just fine without being too strict with myself.

It's not for everyone, but it was a good fit for me.

Just try it and see if it works for you.

I've found one or two 20h fasts per week very effective at shedding fat without losing too much muscle mass. Much less effort than counting macros every day.

I know a lot of people that have lost weight using that method. I don't have weight problems but it's the method I use when I'm cutting and it works as I expect it to. I think it's probably the best way to get used to eating less. The trick is not gorging yourself when you do eat.

Yup. Works. I'd suggest looking at the types, which are basically schedules:

https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/diet/types-intermittent-fasting-which-best-you/

I'd also suggest looking into some charts that help you decide how much you can lose based on your height/weight/age/sex.

https://simple.life/blog/intermittent-fasting-by-age-chart/

Trial, error, stick to a schedule and it works; yes.

If you find it easier to skip a meal than to stop eating, go for it.

I do it all the time. I eat around 7:30pm and don't eat until 1:00 p the next day. Usually have only 1 or 2 meals a day. Breakfast is bullshit. Most important meal my ass. I do just fine without it.

So, it works?

Yep. I've hard it all comes down to calories out minus calories in.

Really anything that comfortably and sustainably controls calories in, for your individual lifestyle and metabolism, is going to work.

For some people, I imagine that could be intermittent fasting.

Personally, I just got out of the habit of eating breakfast, at some point, and I found it helped control my total daily calorie intake. (I don't know if that counts as intermittent fasting?)

The key thing I had to internalize is that my "diet" can not just be something I do for awhile - it has to be my new normal, for any positive change to stick.

One thing that isn't talked about enough with IF is that it's very easy to pick up an eating disorder. Once you learn how to be hungry, it's very easy to say "I can wait another 30 mins" and do that 5 times and then it's been 24 hours since you've eaten. Or to get obsessive about waiting so you lose just a little bit more. When it's time to eat, you need to eat. If you already have a bad relationship with food, this isn't going to make it better. Just be aware that it's not foolproof.

It works for me. Been accidentally doing it since I was 13. Parents didn't give me an allowance, but they did give me lunch money, so if I wanted to buy games I had to skip lunch. Never went back and I've always been a healthy weight without much exercise.

Coffee for breakfast, water all day, and a double serving size of dinner. Lately, with the rising cost of food, I have been doing a lighter dinner and supplementing with a protein shake for lunch.

I've been doing something OMAD-like for about 4 or 5 months now. Went from 210lbs to 190lbs today. Here's what I was doing:

1. Each week, set a goal weight that is 1-2 lbs lower than your current weight/last week's goal. The leaner you get, the harder it is to lose, so having a goal of 1 or even 1/2 lbs can be good for lean people. I'm 6'4" and decently athletic. Right now at 190, I'm starting to show abs, so my goal rn is 1/2lb per week.
2. Each morning, wake up and weigh yourself. If you are at or below this week's goal weight, great! Have a nice breakfast. If not, no breakfast. Then, skip lunch. Sometime in the evening, eat dinner. No need to beat yourself up if dinner isn't perfect, but obviously, eating tacos at home is better than ordering a pizza.
3. Using a little text document on your phone or whatever, write down everything you eat every day. I hate estimating portion sizes, and instead just record for the sake of tracking food quality - typically if I eat pizza and beer and cake, I gain weight, lol.
4. Each week, review your progress and your food log. Did you achieve your goal? If so, celebrate! If not, review your food journal. Ask yourself - did you cheat or eat unhealthy foods? If so, why? And do you regret it? I think it is fine to have a slice of cake at someone's party every once in a while, and I don'r regret that it might slow my progress a little. But if I go to McD's 5 nights a week, then I'll regret that. So then, you reflect on why you did the things you not regret, and ask yourself if there is some way you can make it easier to avoid these temptations in the future - like having dinner made already at home (crockpots ftw!), or finding a way to reduce stress in your life so you are less interested in binge eating.

I will also note that I exercise quite a lot. I lift, I go rock climbing, I go hiking. Sometimes I play hacky sack or pickleball or ultimate frisbee. I recommend exercising as well - it isn't necessary according to CICO, but we all know it helps. Find some kind of fun, social exercise that you can keep coming back to and enjoying.

Another note: many people will feel like the progress I've made is quite minimal and slow. In my defence, (1) I'm already pretty lean relative to most people with body comp goals (2) this has been an extremely painless and very sustainable process and (3) losing weight slowly is the way to go, as it preserves muscle mass and ensures your diet is sustainable long term.

It works as long as you reduce your calorie intake. If you fast for 16 hours, but then pig out on 3000 kcal during the next 8, you're not going to find a lot of success.

From the article

is barely more effective than doing nothing

I’ve never been seriously overweight but sometimes my pants get a bit tight, combining intermittent fasting and keto is usually a pretty quick and ”easy” way to drop some weight. It works if you stick with it

Yes it works but I will say that any "diet" works in that the individual is conscientiously making good changes to their diet, exercise, or both.

The other thing to note is that, even if you fast for 16hrs, if you go and binge eat crap and still exceed a caloric intake, you won't really see results.

One of the great things with fasting is it gives you time to reflect on what you're going to eat and hopefully takes away time so you don't end up snacking all your gains (losses) away.

If you don’t have improper dietary restrictions, try keto. I found it most effective because of how full the food you learn to eat keeps you. It has been the most effective diet I ever tried. Just stay away from the fad keto stuff talking about “loose 200 pounds overnight” nonsense.

Weight loss is a measure of taking in fewer calories than you burn. That's the formulae.

That's how people usually think of it, but there are other, faster, ways. Such as amputation.

Of course, it's not better. There is no way around the laws of thermodynamics.

Well said. No diet is going to magic away the math. Haha.

Except that's not what 99% of the punditorium espouses - for the last 15 years it's been a continuous litany of "intermittent fasting is THE answer", and anyone disagreeing is roundly condemned.

Despite 80 years of diabetes research that contradicts much of the argument for fasting.

Although calories in, calories out is valid, people are not robots. Much of diet science is not on how many calories we should consume (we have that pretty much figured out), but on how we make sure we do it in a way that leaves us satiated and sane. So just commenting on any study about diets with "cico is all that counts" is ignoring a lot of nuance. What is interesting is to learn whether this method of achieving negative cico works for more or less people than other methods.

The real benefit of fasting is feeding one's precious akkermansias. But it doesn't do any good if you then carpet bomb the poor things with sugar during your feeding window, which is possibly where a lot of folks are going wrong. Not all calories are equal because you aren't the only one eating.

Is it meant to be a panna cotta then?

Or a panettone?

God I'm hungry.

Which law of thermodynamics applies?

I don't do intermittent fasting because I think it's superior, I do it because I'm lazy.

Eat normally 4 days a week, eat nothing 3 days a week, boom, calorie intake dropped by 40%. No counting meals, portioning broccoli, or cutting carbs.

Well, none of the people I know who have done it, have done it because of weight loss specifically.

What have been their reasons?

No, it says "particular way of attempting to achieve X no more likely to be successful than other ways of attempting to achieve X". That's a totally different thing to what you said.

Right, but it's not special is all, or innately more effective.

However one can control their intake, that's what works.

Tell me one that is more effective than others or deficient not that its typical

I mean, basically every reasonable idea works about the same. Eat real food, not too much, go exercise. As long as your diet does that, it is all about long term adherence - your diet only really works if you can stick to it the rest of your life.

The desire for a silver bullet, though, is what drives the wackball solutions.

Not every news article is going to be about some ground breaking research. That researchers are putting these sorts of fad diets to the test is important and knowing the outcome of that is useful. Journalism is about informing people, not entertaining them. If you can't handle being informed without the sensationalism, you may need to seek professional help.

If you already have clinical depression it fits in quite well

I bet there is one for you! The problem is that every person is in a different place with their diet, physical, and mental health, so the one weird trick that works for one person may not work for someone else. It might not even work for the same person later in their life!

When I was younger my trick was to only eat when I’m hungry. I worked at a pizza place where I could make and eat food whenever it wasn’t busy, so I could eat earlier or later in the day depending on how hungry I was. That doesn’t work as well now that I’m in an office position and have to eat on a regular schedule.

Either a full-time personal coach or GLP-1 drugs would be pretty effective.

Or you could join the military, go to prison, take up long-distance running, or get cancer or AIDS or something. Plenty of options.

I believe that's called "Ozempic."

Change your physical and social environment. Move somewhere where everyone walks and rides bikes and plays sports. Hang out with people who eat healthy food and take care of themselves. Your brain will come to see these behaviors as normal and desireable, and the weight will naturally come off.