I did a ketogenic diet for about 6 months. After deciding to eat carbs again, everything was really sweet tasting, even potatoes and bread. Desserts were just unbearably sweet. I'm on day 2 of starting a ketogenic diet, and my body is definitely craving carbs... but that will soon stop, and I'll be free.

From anecdotal evidence, it is quite common to give up sugary sodas while still eating other sweets. If you currently drink soda, consider starting by trying to replace them without worrying about other sweets.

Also, I recently changed up a sugar-purchasing habit - there's a shop along my typical walking route to work where I got into the habit of buying candy. I switched this habit to buying sunchips, and then eventually dropped it.

Become a snob. Eat really good desserts infrequently instead of crappy ones often. This has worked really well for me. I still get to enjoy homemade donuts made with real butter but can't stand the supermarket garbage. I'll second the identity tricks mentioned as dovetailing nicely with this.

I have played with this (successfully) a decent amount.

It's about the associations, and there are a few ways to get there. Perhaps most importantly, you don't need to "hack" anything in. Excess sugar gives you plenty of bad experiences with which to condition against excess sugar consumption - you just have to make the connection.

For me, it happened automatically as I started reading into nutrition stuff. When I read things, I tend to read slowly and take a moment and really think about the implications. That imaginary association was enough to start me on the path of eating less sweets. I got my girlfriend to eat less sweets which gave her the opportunity to notice how much better she felt when not eating sweets - and how much worse she felt when she would eat them again. Paying attention to the expected and actual outcomes while eating is enough. Neither of us abhor all sweetness now, but it's much toned down and my taste is exactly where I want it. For example, a few black berries on the top of a paleo waffle? Mmmm! Syrup? Ew. Gross.

Since then, I've been able to change my tastes more deliberately. It's a bit weird to describe to someone who hasn't had similar experiences, but I basically imagine eating the food and focus on "exploring the taste" while also imagining the good feeling "qualia" of knowing something is going to be good for me and help me feel good. I used to hate pickles, but when I realized that they were fermented and that I should probably like them, I started imaging what it would be like to enjoy the taste of pickles, and by the time I got my hands on a pickle, I thoroughly enjoyed it (and have since).

Also, I've used hypnosis to tweak peoples tastes. You have to be a bit mindful of 'ecology of fit' if you want a change to be lasting, but it's a great way to explore new experiences. I can't remember exactly why I didn't try for a permanent change at the time, but it was a pretty eye opening experience being able to toggle my girlfriends taste for sweets with literally the snap of my fingers. She went from craving and about to eat a piece of milk chocolate to throwing it on the ground and laughing about how she almost put that disgusting thing in her mouth.

I've gradually inched up the %cocoa in the chocolate I eat. Now 85% dark is my go to for chocolate cravings, dessert/sweet snack cravings etc, and I find sweeter deserts less appealing. I go through A LOT of 85% dark now though, so if anyone knows of associated health concerns, you should probably let me know!

Not quite what you are asking for, but I got in the habit of having whole fruit for dessert after most meals instead of soda, juices or sweets. It seems that over time, if you avoid soda and sweets, fruit tastes better and better.

I'm not going to lie and say that I enjoy fresh berries more than I would enjoy a chocolate milkshake, but I find I can live with the substitution.

Of course fruits still contain sugar but it's probably a much healthier way of consuming sugar than with more refined/concentrated sweet foods.

I trained myself to loathe sugar and other carbs with the full range of the "Im/purity" component of morality (see Moral Foundation Theory). Since one aspect of religion is morality and especially the Impurity aspect, I gathered all Scriptural references to the evils of carbs in an essay.

I really had it bad (e.g., my hand would reach out for a cookie, as if my instinct) before, and I have actually been off sugar and most grains for two years or so, though I have not lost weight.

Summary: Think or say "vomit" whenever sugar is mentioned or seen, and you'll eventually come around.

Try the sugar substitute xylitol. From what I have read it is healthy. Unfortunately for me, although I love the taste of xylitol candy, it does unspeakable (in a too much information sort of way) things to me.

I used to be pretty fat and eat lots of junk food. Then I started playing sports really competitively. I worked out every day and started eating a healthy diet with zero junk food. This was a few years ago, so I don't recall how long the transition to zero junk food took, but certainly now, the only food I ever have cravings for are dried magoes, dried dates, and 85+% Dark chocolate. Cookies, cake, etc just don't look like food to me. It's like I don't even have an affordance for eating them.

I supposed during the process, I used the "identity" strategy to avoid junk food, since I saw myself as an uber-disciplined athlete.

I have zero will power for the things I do crave. I avoid eating them by:

1. Not buying them. (mostly)
2. Keeping them out of my sight. (as soon as I see them, I'll probably want to eat them).

In summary, just eat really healthy for a while, and see if your cravings just disappear. After I became healthier, I basically trusted that whatever my body was craving (more dried fruit) was probably good for me.

Also, since I was working out a lot, I ate lots of carbs in the form of fresh fruit. I've heard paleo people say that you're allowed to eat more carbs the more you workout.

For me, I stopped craving sugar after I stopped eating so much of it. Why did I stop eating it? Well, that's because I think I changed my identity from "Someone who eats whatever they want when they're hungry" to "someone who only eats what he has decided is optimal" (and sugary foods are often not in that category).

I dunno. Maybe you can exploit classical conditioning and give yourself a taste aversion by consuming something sweet along with something that will make you nauseated and vomit?

I have successfully not liked sugar, candy, sweets, sodas, etc. for many years. I did this by noticing and then focusing on the cruddy sugar drop feeling one experiences after eating something like a large portion of ice cream. After a while you train yourself to feel revulsion when you see ice cream (or whatever). I actually sort of regret doing this, but not entirely, because then I look around at how hard other people have to struggle against these super stimulus foods.

By the way, I'm going purely by simple observation and self-observation, but I think it's a fool's errand to try to reprogram System 1. System 1 is like a petulant, nasty, gluttonous inner child who will never ever grow up.

The better strategy, in my opinion, is containment, i.e. to come up with strategies to limit and control System 1's impact on one's actual actions and decisions in life.

Sucralose works for me as a replacement of actual sugar.

I've never heard of anybody successfully training themselves to genuinely dislike the taste of sugar, as opposed to the idea of eating it. I've been succesfully avoiding sugar for years and on the rare occasions when I do eat some I thoroughly enjoy it. It might be easier to train yourself to enjoy bitter tastes. This is releatively easy, because drugs are often bitter. Strong unsweetened black coffee on an empty stomach might be a good place to start. You'll associate the bitterness with the caffeine high and eventually enjoy bitterness even without the caffeine. If you have high caffeine tolerance then taking a break to reduce it first might help. If you don't enjoy caffeine then other drugs could work, eg. drinking heavily hopped American IPA style beers.

Sugar is often used to mask bitterness, so enjoying bitterness should help make sugar avoidance easier.

I don't promise this will work, but I found my desire for sugar significantly reduced by trying to go cold turkey on refined sugar specifically.

It's a pain to do, because it's in an amazing variety of foods, but after a few weeks of cravings I found sugar desire decreased massively.

I can't tell you a magic, silver bullet cure. The boring old advice: go shopping on a full stomach, buy only non-sugary foods. Make the deadly sins of sloth and gluttony work against each other by keeping sugar an annoying distance away from you. Shop at health food stores to avoid temptation. If you drive, pay at the pump rather than going into the gas station, etc.

When I was about 12 years old, my parents took me on a cruise to Alaska. Drinks were not included, but they offered an "unlimited coca-cola brand drinks" for like $30 or so. My parents bought it for my little brother and me and I drank nothing but coke products for 6 days, then the last day swore off of soda forever. Now, over a decade later, I still don't drink soda at all and have no desire to.

It reminds me of Morgan Spurlock from Super-Size Me who says he now only eats a hamburger maybe once a month, and not the fast-food kind. You could try doing something similar for sugar, though there's probably a better way.

I have eaten a version of the Paleo diet on and off, for a combined total "on" of probably about 2 and a half years and I agree that once you've made the "fat as primary fuel source adaptation," you really don't crave sugar at all. If you don't want to do a full paleo diet, I wonder if starting on a paleo diet, you could re-introduce complex carbs like beans and brown rice without reverting all the way back to craving sugar. Might be worth a shot.