I think the fact that the time-restricted eating group did slightly better than the consistent meal timing group is actually pretty strong evidence that intermittent fasting is effective. At least for me, it is much easier to only eat during a certain time period than to hold to a 3 meal a day schedule, so the fact that the groups performed similarly shows a lot of the value of intermittent fasting - same results with simpler rules.

Also I'm surprised that a 1% drop in body weight across ~100 participants gives statistically significant results - isn't that pretty well within daily fluctuation due to water intake? I would imagine most people who are trying to lose weight are aiming to lose more like 10% than 1%.