That’s the mainstream method of losing weight. Every single person that’s wanted to lose weight has tried it, likely many times.
I’m not saying IF is the solution, but it’s insulting to say it’s as simple as “diet and exercise”. If it was, 80% of Americans wouldn’t be overweight.
You mentioned Americans in particular, but I think that the problem with obesity in the U.S. is a kind of its own. When even the bread is sugared, I think a significant part of the 80% problem is systemic.
In my experience, fasting is far easier than losing weight by a traditional diet. Consider that your body is finely tuned to make sure that you eat very close to as many calories as you burn. If you consistently eat 400 calories less than it thinks it needs, it will ratchet up the pressure on you. It takes continual self control to eat almost as much as your body wants but not quite.
Fasting is actually a lot easier. Your body is designed to fast, just as it's designed to run. As with running, once you exercise those chemical pathways, the actual fasting part isn't that bad -- it's much less unpleasant than being slightly low-calorie all the time. And it's a lot easier from a willpower perspective to eat nothing at all, and then eat as much as you feel like, than to continually eat a little less than you feel like.
I feel like a lot of people are afraid of fasting because they think that hunger will be linear -- after 8 hours without eating they feel twice as hungry as after 4, so after 16 hours they'll feel twice as hungry again, and after 24 hours they'll be writhing in agony. It's not like that at all.
Basically, if you can summon up the discipline to run 2 miles regularly, you can summon the discipline to do a 16/8 IF fasting cycle; if you have the discipline to run 5 miles, you have the discipline to do a 36 hour fast (basically skipping one full day a week); and if you have the discipline that you can train your body to run 10 miles, you have enough discipline to train it to fast for a week. (The last one you'd obviously only do once in a while.)
For me there are 2 main issues. 1) I’ve never found the point in IF when I stop being hungry. I start getting hungry typically after 5 hours of being awake and I stay that way until I eat. Whether that’s 2 minutes or 24 hours, I’ve never reached that mythic place where it’s not that bad. 2) it’s incompatible with my lifestyle. I work out in the morning which jacks up my hunger so skipping breakfast is miserable. I have a family and dinner is when we have time with each other. Having to not eat with them is awkward, unsatisfying and a burden.
Meanwhile switching each of my meals to be 20% smaller, a higher protein ratio and to be mostly vegetables doesn’t have any of these problems. It’s downright easy on a day to day basis.
Of course for me the real trick is to stop drinking alcohol. The caloric density and it’s propensity to make you stop keeping track of how many you’ve had means a few drinks can blow a weeks worth of eating well.
This applies to me as well.
In addition to that, I don't want to fast. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy food greatly. Good cooking is an art form to me. I don't want less of it, and by being somewhat more picky when choosing it and also getting some of exercise, I can have more of it.
Personally the 16/8 never worked for me for losing weight; and I also fast partially for religious purposes. So I typically fast Mondays (i.e., eat dinner Sunday evening, then breakfast Tuesday morning).
My British wife can't stand the bread in the US. She says it tastes like cake (and her UK friends agree). The funny thing is British bread doesn't taste any less sweet to my American palate.
We tried about 6 different supermarket chains in the Irvine area, and the only one that reliably stored affordable good bread was Whole Foods. Weirdly all Americans told us Whole Foods was an expensive supermarket, but it was less expensive for our diet than the other supermarkets. Of course Irvine is an expensive area, so it could just be all supermarkets were relatively expensive.
I wouldn't judge a culture by their hotel breakfasts though. I don't think they match typical breakfasts basically anywhere. I don't think many hotels would serve you a breakfast burrito, but as far as I can tell that's basically a staple for many working Americans and it looks like it is actually quite healthy.
edit: to be clear, supermarkets in western europe have always stocked fresh bread for as long as I can remember, but in the past 10-15 years have also started stocking "artisanal" fresh bread. So they sell your pick of sourdough rye/wheat/spelt breads that have all been baked that morning.
Just 1 data point confirming the parent post.