Ditching sugary drinkings is a smart move for your health , not to mention your waistlinean average can of soda packs in about 150 calories and 39 grams of sugar( that’s over 9 teaspoons ). Switching to diet may not help your calorie-cutting endeavors much, though: A new study suggests that at the end of the day, you’ll probably still eat the same number of total calories overall.

Scientists are still learning exactly how are bodies and brains react to calorie-free sweeteners. To test the effects of different different sweeteners on processes like craving and blood sugar, scientists from Singapore conducted a small study involving 30 young men.

On each day of the experiment, “the mens” were served breakfast and, a few hours later, given a liquor to tide them over until their next snack. The liquors were sweetened with either sugar, the artificial sweetener aspartame, the plant-based sweetener Stevia, or a sweetener derived from the monk fruit plant.

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The trial had a randomized, crossover design, meaning that each participant was given a different liquor on each of the four study days. At lunch, “the mens” were told to eat until they felt full. Then they took home food periodicals, to record what they ate for the rest of the day.

The studys outcomes were surprising. Even though the sugar-sweetened liquor contained about 250 calories( 65 grams of sugar, about whats in a 20 -ounce soda or juice) and the others were calorie-free, that didnt affect the total number of calories “the mens” ate the working day long.

It turns out men who had zero-calorie drinkings feed slightly more at lunch than those whod had a sugar-sweetened one. This balanced out their total energy uptake, so that when daily calorie counts were grouped by liquor, they all averaged about 2,300.( How much “the mens” feed the rest of the working day, when they are left the study site, didnt seem to be affected by which drinking they had .)

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“The energy ‘saved’ from replacing sugar with non-nutritive sweetener was fully compensated for at subsequent dinners, ” said lead author Siew Ling Tey, a former research fellow at Singapores Agency for Science, Technology, and Research, in a press release.

It’s also worth noting that the diet drinkers did not indulge to excess. While they did report feeling slightly hungrier before lunch than the individuals who drank the sugary drinking, they are ate enough extra to make up for the drinks lack of caloriesand they didnt keep overeating for the rest of the day.

The researchers also took blood samples before and after lunch to test participants blood glucose and insulin responses. While the sugar-sweetened liquor led to larger spikes in both measures within an hour after drinking it, those who drank the calorie-free liquor experienced larger spikes after lunch. Over the entire three-hour testing period, total glucose change was about the same for all four beverages.

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The outcomes were published in the International Journal of Obesity. The writers note that their findings may appear to contradict a recent review in which swapping sugary drinkings for artificially sweetened ones did lead people to eat less calories overall, and lose weight, over time.

But both studies can agree on one thing: that using calorie-free sweeteners didnt lead to over-consumptionat least not over the person’s normal calorie quantity. And, the authors write, if people switch from sugar to calorie-free alternatives without adjusting their eating behavior to compensate( consciously or subconsciously ), it is likely theyd reduce their calorie uptake, and is finally lose weight.

Their findings show that this may be easier said than done, however, and may involve paying closer attention to snack options, portion sizings, and snacking behaviors. Keep that in mind next time youre looking for something to quench your thirst. And remember, theres always water or unsweetened teanatural, healthy hydration options that wont add calories or mess with your mind.

Such articles originally appeared on Health.com .

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