My experience with shortened eating windows is that they did make intentionally eating less easier to do--but didn't make that much difference if I wasn't restricting on purpose--no spontaneous weight loss. Maybe it's a useful tool, but you have to know which end's the handle?

Cico--people argue about that. I think there's more than one way to look at things. Mainstream bodybuilding dieters argue calorie in/calorie out, you have to restrict calories to lose weight. One low carb view is that changing food choices may decrease appetite, or increase energy out--I know what i'm eating has a big effect on whether I'm passed out on the couch or up and about on my day off--so, you eat differently, and that gets you weightloss.

I'm not sure sometimes that the equations are so much different so much as put in different terms. There've been times with low carb when I've counted calories. Say my maintenance seems to be 2400 calories at the time and I wanted to eat 2000 comfortably. So I count, and try different foods. Turns out pork chops, eggs, heavy cream and butter, I can eat 2000 calories a day and be satisfied--but 2000 calories with those same foods, but add cheese, pork rinds and peanut butter, and I'll blow through that calorie limit--and still be unsatisfied. So I could say, my appetite was reduced by different food choices so I ate less calories--or that I tolerated a greater calorie restriction better by making different food choices.

The eight hour fasting style seems to be most common with the bodybuilding set. I think maybe it's due to the sort of structured eating plans they tend to. If you're weighing every sprig of cauliflower and ounce of tuna, at least you only have to do that for eight hours.