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It works especially well if you don't end up tempted to massively overeat during your eating windows - some people think they can just eat whatever they want and end up gaining weight instead. A practical trick: if you notice you're starting to snack or graze during your eating phase, portion out your meals into containers beforehand and just make the rest of the kitchen inaccessible. It sounds basic, but psychologically it helps incredibly when you're not constantly walking past open cupboards and grabbing stuff on impulse.
Yes, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight, but it's not magic - in the end, total calorie intake is what matters. The advantage is more that many people find it easier to get into a calorie deficit this way, because they eat within a smaller time window and often automatically consume fewer calories as a result. You're not forcing yourself to starve; you're just structuring your eating times differently.
What works well for many people: they eat between, say, 12 and 8 p.m. and fast for the rest of the day. It's psychologically easier than counting and restricting yourself all day long. Some people don't feel hungry in the morning anyway and can just start eating later - for them it's ideal. Others can't handle it well and get irritable or end up eating too much during their window.
The reality: it works for you if you stick with it and stay in a deficit. But if you then stuff yourself with whatever you can find during eating time because you're "allowed to fast," that won't help you. Just try it for a couple of weeks - some people quickly figure out whether it suits them or not. The best plan is always the one you can actually stick to.
Most people who lose weight with intermittent fasting do actually see a drop on the scale in the first two or three weeks - but that's usually mostly water, not fat. The real thing a lot of people miss: intermittent fasting doesn't automatically make it easier to eat less. If you then pig out during your eating window because you were starving before, you quickly end up back in the red. It only works if you actually manage to create a calorie deficit with it - for some it's more structured that way, for others it's just annoying.
I've had pretty good results with a 16:8 rhythm, mainly because I'm just not as hungry in the mornings as I used to be. The trick that nobody else mentioned: don't make your eating window too short - give yourself two or three hours to eat instead. Otherwise you really do stuff everything in and your calorie deficit disappears. What's more important anyway is that you don't snack randomly during that time just because "yeah, I'm allowed to eat now." For me it works best when I adjust my eating times to fit my daily routine, not the other way around.
Eating between 12 and 20 o'clock, fasting between 20 and 12 o'clock - that does work for weight loss, but honestly not better than just eating less! The advantages are more psychological: some people find it easier to think only within a eating window instead of counting calories all day. But the other answers are right that a lot of people then stuff their faces like crazy during the eating window and end up consuming more calories than they burn. What actually helps is more the effect that you automatically snack less at night when you know "eating stops after 20 o'clock" - that saves you tons of unnecessary chips and stuff like that.
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