Skipping meals on a regular schedule, without cutting calories, seems to shrink belly fat and improve blood‑sugar markers more than just eating fewer calories.

If you're an adult with extra weight, cutting calories by either fasting some days or eating less every day leads to similar weight loss and health improvements — neither method works much better than the other if you eat the same total amount of food.

For older adults, going without food on certain days (but eating the same total calories) might help lose body fat and lower inflammation faster than just eating fewer calories every day — at least at first — but that doesn’t always mean better long-term health.

Both skipping meals now and then (intermittent fasting) and eating fewer calories can help overweight adults lose weight and body fat over several months, according to several studies.

People who try intermittent fasting tend to lose a little more weight than those who just cut calories continuously, according to several studies.

Eating only on certain days or within a short daily window might help people with extra weight lose more body fat than eating the same number of calories every day, but we only have a couple of studies to back this up.