It's possible that my example might not be up to date. In the past I've been given advice that trying to just skip eating an entire meal at a time when one normally would makes someone less likely to be able to follow through with being as strict later in the day. Assuming that this isn't an outdated misconception, I think the comparison still somewhat holds. Studying all night and not sleeping is totally fine if you're able to function fine without sleep, but it's counterproductive if you're not. In the same way, "just eat less" works as long as you're able to follow it, but for some people, trying to follow that strategy without any other caveats might not be particularly effective.

Fad diets like intermittent fasting or any kind of major lifestyle change like that take a lot of willpower and self-discipline, which is also why most diets fail long term.

Better thing to do is have a routine first. A lot of people don't have any eating habits, it's more of an afterthought or a "whenever I'm hungry I'll eat" kinda thing. You can't base a diet off of that.

If you fix your diet by just eating at the same moments, roughly the same amount of time, only then do you have a baseline. Then make tweaks on that baseline. Evolution instead of revolution, only that will be sustainable.