Abstract of the abstract:
Emerging findings from studies of animal models and human subjects suggest that intermittent energy restriction periods of as little as 16 h can improve health indicators and counteract disease processes.
I naturally go longer than that without eating each day. If you skip breakfast and lunch times, and include the hours you're asleep, it's easy to "fast" for closer to 20 hours or more every day.
I wouldn't force that though, I think everyone is different, living different lifestyles, and their optimal eating cycles will reflect that. When I'm working primarily sedentarily on the computer, then I'd rather work all day and eat quickly in one sitting at the end of the day. But if I'm spending all day doing manual labor outside in the sun, I'll naturally want to eat and drink more in between.
I use intermittent fasting as a very effective way to keep my total daily caloric intake in check. If there are side benefits on health that is a cherry on top.
A typical day for me would be up at 7 am. 2 or 3 cups of strong black coffee until noon. I'll eat two main meals of ~800 calories at noon & 5:30pm and then sprinkle 1000 calories worth of snacks all throughout my eating window until 8pm. I stay very satiated all day in this fashion...much more so than if I were to eat breakfast first thing in the morning.
http://antranik.org/intermittent-fasting/
This groks with everything I've learned about dieting and exercise. Some people like to work out in the afternoon because their bodies are at peak-warm-up. While I like to exercise first thing in the morning because my body has to find energy in my fat stores after fasting through eight hours of sleep.
Try weighing yourself before bed and when you wake up. You'll find you lose a pound or more for exhaling carbon in your sleep:
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/06/19/193556929/ev...
Here's how it works for me: go to bed at 9, get up at 5am, skip breakfast, and put off lunch until 1pm (drink lots of tea during the day). What I've found is that I can't eat enough calories between 1pm and 9pm to gain weight.
I think these researchers are on to something. Different dieting techniques work for different people, so it's good to have lots of options.
I've tried this a bunch of times and have seen up to two pounds difference on rare occasions!
A significant fraction of the weight loss is due to water loss though.
(and technically it's carbon dioxide, not "carbon", although with climate change being blamed on "carbon" we may have already lost the war on that misnomer!)
Veritasium has a nice video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL2e0rWvjKI