This is not medical advice. General information for self-tracking only. If you are under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, have ever had an eating disorder or a difficult relationship with food, or are managing a medical condition, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian before you change your calorie intake. That includes diabetes in particular, because what you drink affects blood sugar as well as calories, and the sweetener guidance discussed below does not cover people who have it. The figures this site relies on are on the health sources page.

Why a drink does not fill you up like food

In 2000, Daniel DiMeglio and Richard Mattes at Purdue University gave 15 adults an extra 1,880 kJ a day, about 450 calories, for two four-week periods with a four-week washout between them. In one period the extra came as soda, in the other as jelly beans, and people could have them however they liked. In the jelly bean weeks people ate less of everything else, by slightly more than the jelly beans supplied: the authors put dietary compensation at 118%. In the soda weeks they ate no less. Total intake rose by about the whole load (compensation of minus 17%), and body weight and BMI went up significantly only in the soda period. Hunger and physical activity did not change in either.1

Fifteen people is a very small trial. In 2007 the same lab tried it on 120 adults, half lean and half with obesity, using three matched pairs rather than one: watermelon and watermelon juice, cheese and milk, coconut flesh and coconut milk. Whatever nutrient the food was mostly made of, people compensated less after the drink. Total energy intake that day was 12.4% higher with the carbohydrate drink, 19% higher with the fat one and 15% higher with the protein one. The authors put this down more to the drink failing to hold off hunger until the next meal than to people drinking a lot of it at once, and the differences between lean and obese participants were small and not systematic.2 Those were single test days, though, not weeks of ordinary eating.

The whole apple, the apple sauce and the juice

Julie Flood-Obbagy and Barbara Rolls at Penn State took one food and changed only its form. Once a week for five weeks, 58 adults had 266 g of apple, apple sauce, apple juice, or apple juice with fibre added back, each worth 125 calories and eaten at the same pace, or nothing at all, and then sat down to lunch 15 minutes later. After the whole apple, lunch intake counting the apple itself was 15% lower than with no starter, 187 calories less on average, and lower than after the sauce or either juice. People rated themselves fullest after the apple, then the sauce, then the two juices.3

The detail I found most useful is the fibre. Putting it back into the juice, at the levels found naturally in apples, did not make the juice any more filling.3 So juice is not simply an apple minus its fibre. What fibre does and does not do for fullness on its own is in the fibre and weight loss post.

What 253 preload experiments add up to

Studies like these vary a lot in method, so in 2013 a systematic review from the MRC Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge gathered 48 publications covering 253 test servings: 121 drinks, 69 semisolid foods, 20 solid foods and 43 mixed meals. How much of a serving's energy people made up for later ranged from minus 370% to 450%. The low end, where people ate more afterwards rather than less, was mostly drinks.4

Among the studies where people did compensate, the biggest single factor was the time until the next meal, with the physical form and the energy of the serving also contributing. Between them they explained half the variation. Compensation was greatest when the serving was semisolid or solid and the next meal came 30 to 120 minutes later.4 Form matters, then, but timing matters at least as much, and neither tells you what one particular drink will add to your day.

What cutting sweet drinks did in a six-month trial

If drinks are where calories get past appetite, cutting them out should be an easy win. The CHOICE trial at the University of North Carolina tested it. It randomised 318 adults with overweight or obesity who got at least 200 calories a day from drinks, 84% of them women and 54% Black, to replace those drinks with water, replace them with diet drinks, or make any diet changes they chose. After six months the average weight loss was 2.5% in the diet drink group, 2.03% in the water group and 1.76% among the controls, and after a published correction the authors report no significant differences between groups.5

The diet drink group was more likely than the controls to reach a 5% loss (odds ratio 2.29, 95% CI 1.05 to 5.01), and the two replacement groups taken together were about twice as likely as controls.5 The authors call it a simple message with public health significance. It is also a modest result. The controls, who picked their own changes, were not far behind on average, so cutting drinks was one workable way to make a deficit rather than a clearly better one.

Diet drinks or water when counting calories to lose weight

The trial most often quoted for diet drinks comes from the University of Colorado. All 303 participants joined the same behavioural weight-loss programme and were told to drink 710 ml (24 ounces) a day of either water or diet drinks. After 12 weeks the diet drink group had lost 5.95 kg against 4.09 kg and reported less hunger.6 At one year the gap was wider: 6.21 kg against 2.45 kg.7

Two details change how I read that. Everyone recruited already drank diet drinks at least three times a week, so the water group was giving up a habit while the other group kept theirs. The authors chose regular users deliberately, because many people dislike the taste and non-users might not drink enough to show an effect. And the study was fully funded by the American Beverage Association, which the paper says had no part in the design, conduct or write-up; an outside firm audited the data at both sites.7

A larger trial at the University of Liverpool, also funded by the American Beverage Association, randomised 493 adults who regularly drank cold drinks, 24.1% of them new to diet drinks. After a year in a weight-management programme the diet drink group had kept off 7.5 kg and the water group 6.1 kg. That difference was statistically significant, and the authors themselves say it was not clinically significant.8 They then followed people through a second year with no meetings. Only 220 finished it. At week 104 the groups had kept off 4.8 kg and 3.7 kg, the difference was no longer significant, and the two drinks came out statistically equivalent.9

A 2022 network meta-analysis from the University of Toronto pooled 17 randomised trials in adults with overweight or obesity. Replacing sugary drinks with diet drinks was associated with 1.06 kg lower body weight (95% CI 0.41 to 1.71 kg), at moderate certainty. Replacing sugary drinks with water was not significantly associated with any outcome, but only three trials did that and the certainty was low. Diet drinks against water made no difference to weight.10 Several of the authors declared fees from sweetener and drinks industry bodies, among them the International Sweeteners Association and the Calorie Control Council, all listed in the paper.10

Why the WHO says the opposite

In May 2023 the World Health Organization published a guideline that "recommends against the use of NSS to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases". NSS means non-sugar sweeteners, such as aspartame, sucralose and stevia. WHO rated the recommendation conditional, said it applies to everyone except people with pre-existing diabetes, and said the link between sweeteners and disease in the evidence "might be confounded by baseline characteristics of study participants". Its review found no long-term benefit for body fat in adults or children.11

A 2019 systematic review carried out for WHO by Cochrane Germany shows how thin the base is in both directions. In adults it found a small benefit to BMI on evidence of very low and low certainty from two small studies, and no evidence of any effect in people with overweight or obesity who were actively trying to lose weight. Most of the studies, the authors wrote, were small, short and of limited quality.12

The two positions are closer than they look. The trials that favour diet drinks are a year or two long and mostly sit inside weight-loss programmes. WHO's concern is long-term health in everyone, which only observational studies follow, and WHO itself allows that those may be confounded. The ultra-processed food post covers one such cohort analysis, where sweetened drinks with or without sugar went with higher cardiovascular risk.

Water before meals

Plain water may do slightly more than replace a drink. At Virginia Tech, 48 adults aged 55 to 75 followed a calorie-reduced diet for 12 weeks, and half of them drank 500 ml of water before each main meal. That group lost about 2 kg more, a 44% steeper decline in weight. At the start, the water cut a test lunch from 541 to 498 calories. By week 12 it was 506 against 480, and that difference was no longer significant.13

Forty-eight older adults over 12 weeks is a long way from a general rule, and the effect on the meal itself was fading by the end. I would treat it as a cheap thing to try rather than a method.

What the evidence does not settle

  • Whether the diet drink advantage lasts without a programme around it. Every trial above had one, and in the longest the gap was gone by the second year.9
  • Whether sweeteners do harm over decades. The trials are too short to say, and the cohort studies cannot cleanly separate the drink from the reasons people choose it.1112
  • How big the compensation gap is in ordinary life. The clearest evidence comes from 15 people over four weeks and from single laboratory days, and the 253-serving review found timing mattered at least as much as form.124
  • How much the funding shaped the questions. The Colorado and Liverpool trials, which showed the clearest diet drink advantage, were both paid for by the American Beverage Association. That does not make their numbers wrong, and both report the limits I have quoted, but it is worth knowing who chose the comparison.78

What a photo of a glass can tell an app, and what it cannot

A glass is one of the hardest things MyPlate gets asked to estimate. A dark fizzy drink looks the same with sugar and without. A latte does not show whether the milk is whole or skimmed, or whether there are two pumps of syrup in it. From a photo the model gets the colour and a rough volume and has to guess the rest, and MyPlate has no barcode scanner and no food database to look the can up in. Every scan is an estimate, and with drinks the estimate is wider than usual.

So for drinks I would type rather than photograph. "330 ml can of diet cola" or "large latte with whole milk and one syrup" tells the model what the camera cannot. MyPlate does not track water either, so if you try the 500 ml before meals, that is something you would have to count yourself.

How to log drinks in calorie tracking

  • Log every drink with calories as its own item, with its size. USDA FoodData Central lists regular cola at 42 calories per 100 g and whole milk at 61, so taking a millilitre as roughly a gram, a 330 ml can is about 140 calories and the 200 ml of milk in a large latte about 120, before any syrup.14
  • Do not expect to eat less later to make up for it. In the experiments people mostly did not, which is why the log is the only place a drink gets counted at all.12
  • If you want a smaller number, drinks are a reasonable first place to look, and water and diet drinks both worked in the trials. Pick the one you will actually drink. Over two years the difference between them disappeared.59
  • Eat the fruit rather than drink it when you can. In the one study that tested it directly, the same calories filled people up more as an apple than as juice.3
  • Keep the target above the floor whatever you cut. NIH/NHLBI guidance is not to go below 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision, and MyPlate's targets stop there.15

If you have diabetes, the WHO guidance on sweeteners explicitly does not apply to you, and what to drink is a question for your doctor rather than a blog.11 And if logging every coffee is making you anxious, or a number on a screen is deciding how you feel about yourself, stop and talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian. What the research says about who that is most likely to be is in can calorie tracking cause an eating disorder.

Common questions

Do drinks count when counting calories?

Yes. A drink's calories count the same as food's, and the evidence suggests you are less likely to make up for them by eating less later. In a Purdue experiment, people given about 450 calories a day as soda ate no less food and gained weight, while the same calories as jelly beans were fully offset by eating less of everything else.1

Are diet drinks OK when you are counting calories to lose weight?

Probably, in the short term, but the evidence is contested. In trials inside weight-loss programmes, diet drinks did as well as water or slightly better, though the two that found the clearest advantage were funded by the American Beverage Association and in one of them the gap had gone by two years. The WHO conditionally recommends against sweeteners for weight control, for everyone except people with diabetes.8911

Is fruit juice as filling as whole fruit?

No. In a Penn State study, a whole apple eaten before lunch cut total intake by 15% compared with no starter, more than apple sauce or apple juice with the same calories. Adding fibre back into the juice did not make it more filling.3

Does drinking water before meals help you lose weight?

It may help a little, on limited evidence. In one 12-week trial of 48 adults aged 55 to 75 on a calorie-reduced diet, drinking 500 ml of water before each meal led to about 2 kg more weight loss. The drop in meal intake it caused had faded by the end, and it has not been tested widely enough to call it a rule.13

Can a food intake tracking app count drinks from a photo?

Only roughly. A photo cannot show whether a cola has sugar in it or a latte has whole milk, so with MyPlate it is better to type the drink and its size. MyPlate has no barcode scanner or food database, and it does not track water.

Log the glass, then decide what goes in it

In the experiments, people did not eat less later to make up for a soda or a juice. That leaves calorie tracking as the one place those calories get counted, so log every drink, with its size.

What you swap them for is mostly up to you. Water and diet drinks both helped in trials, the difference between them was small and shrank with time, and the WHO's objection rests on long-term questions nobody has answered yet.

Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these. If you find a number that doesn't match the source it claims, tell me and I'll correct it.

  1. DiMeglio DP, Mattes RD (2000). Liquid versus solid carbohydrate: effects on food intake and body weight. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 24(6):794-800. Read on PubMed →
  2. Mourao DM, Bressan J, Campbell WW, Mattes RD (2007). Effects of food form on appetite and energy intake in lean and obese young adults. International Journal of Obesity, 31(11):1688-1695. Read on PubMed →
  3. Flood-Obbagy JE, Rolls BJ (2009). The effect of fruit in different forms on energy intake and satiety at a meal. Appetite, 52(2):416-422. Read on PubMed →
  4. Almiron-Roig E, Palla L, Guest K, et al. (2013). Factors that determine energy compensation: a systematic review of preload studies. Nutrition Reviews, 71(7):458-473. Read on PubMed →
  5. Tate DF, Turner-McGrievy G, Lyons E, et al. (2012). Replacing caloric beverages with water or diet beverages for weight loss in adults: main results of the Choose Healthy Options Consciously Everyday (CHOICE) randomized clinical trial. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 95(3):555-563. Read on PubMed →
  6. Peters JC, Wyatt HR, Foster GD, et al. (2014). The effects of water and non-nutritive sweetened beverages on weight loss during a 12-week weight loss treatment program. Obesity, 22(6):1415-1421. Read on PubMed →
  7. Peters JC, Beck J, Cardel M, et al. (2016). The effects of water and non-nutritive sweetened beverages on weight loss and weight maintenance: a randomized clinical trial. Obesity, 24(2):297-304. Read on PubMed →
  8. Harrold JA, Hill S, Radu C, et al. (2024). Non-nutritive sweetened beverages versus water after a 52-week weight management programme: a randomised controlled trial. International Journal of Obesity, 48(1):83-93. Read on PubMed →
  9. Harrold JA, Hill S, Radu C, et al. (2026). Effect of non-nutritive sweetened beverages versus water on body weight: long-term results of a randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Nutrition, published online ahead of print. Read on PubMed →
  10. McGlynn ND, Khan TA, Wang L, et al. (2022). Association of low- and no-calorie sweetened beverages as a replacement for sugar-sweetened beverages with body weight and cardiometabolic risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 5(3):e222092. Read on PubMed →
  11. World Health Organization (2023). WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control in newly released guideline. News release, 15 May 2023, on Use of non-sugar sweeteners: WHO guideline. Read the release →
  12. Toews I, Lohner S, Küllenberg de Gaudry D, Sommer H, Meerpohl JJ (2019). Association between intake of non-sugar sweeteners and health outcomes: systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised and non-randomised controlled trials and observational studies. BMJ, 364:k4718. Read on PubMed →
  13. Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Comber DL, et al. (2010). Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults. Obesity, 18(2):300-307. Read on PubMed →
  14. US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, SR Legacy entries for beverages, carbonated, cola, regular (FDC ID 174852) and milk, whole, 3.25% milkfat, with added vitamin D (FDC ID 171265). Search FoodData Central →
  15. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH (1998). Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. NIH Publication 98-4083. Read the guidelines →

The formulas and limits behind MyPlate's own numbers, with their citations, are on the health sources page.