It makes you wonder if the intermittent fasting made the participants more aware of when they were actually hungry vs eating mainly out of habit/boredom/coping mechanism.
If I follow an overly strict diet, I wind up thinking about food all of the time. Calorie counting is a form of strictness: I'm continually putting in more time thinking about food. How many calories was that? Do I need to log everything? Do I figure it out when I'm planning and add the extra food thought time there?
And so on.
I've only lost weight through specific dietary changes that are easy to follow. Usually, this has been things like changing daytime food to something more healthy or fewer calories. Or simply putting more vegetables in my diet. I'm currently pescetarian, but rarely eat fish.
Intermittent fasting is in this second category. There isn't much to keep track of and I wouldn't have to put all that much extra thought into it. Some folks could put little to no thought into it. It makes it easier than anything strict.
It makes you wonder if the intermittent fasting made the participants more aware of when they were actually hungry vs eating mainly out of habit/boredom/coping mechanism.