You know you should eat more leafy greens and less refined sugar. And swap your daily triple mocha for plain water. But if you’re like many Australians accustomed to a highly processed, sweet, salty, and fatty diet, your taste buds keep sabotaging your good intentions.

Your failure to quickly adapt to a wholesome diet isn’t entirely your fault. Research indicates that sugar and fat can be addictive, and one brain imaging study using PET scans showed that foods high in these substances work like heroin, opium, or morphine in the brain. In other words, your dietary failures aren’t due to a lack of willpower; you may be chemically dependent on the foods you’re trying to quit.

Fortunately, you can retrain your palate to prefer healthier foods and there are plenty of ways to do so. These tips could help you get started:

Time To Train Your Taste Buds

Start by eliminating sweet and salty foods. Eliminat sweet and salty foods completely for a month or more to reset the palate and help you develop a new baseline for those flavors. To help, it is recommended to practice stress-reducing activities, as stress often leads to cravings for sweet or salty foods.

Try new, healthy foods several times and season them with flavors you like. Research shows pairing foods with familiar flavors repeatedly can increase your preference for those foods.

Practice mindful eating. Not only is mindful eating a stress-reducing practice, but it can also intensify the flavors and ultimately feel more satisfying eating a wholesome food than eating the unhealthy food you crave. Eventually, when your palate has lost its tolerance for really sweet or salty foods, a few mindful bites of a cupcake or potato chips will be more than enough if you decide to indulge.

To Overcome Your Salt Cravings

Eliminate processed foods, including deli meats and frozen meals. The most important part of overcoming a salt addiction is to shift to a diet that’s entirely made up of whole foods.

Cook your own meals. Restaurant and take-out food is packed with sodium. Even if you salt your food at home, you’ll be eating less salt.

Substitute spices or salt alternatives for salt.

Gradually taper the amount of added salt you use, and eat real food.

To Overcome Your Fat Cravings

Replace unhealthy vegetable oils with healthy fats. Certain vegetable oils like corn contain an abundance of omega-6 fatty acids and not enough heart-healthy omega-3s, and this imbalance can be detrimental to cardiovascular health. But healthy fats are actually good for you, so opt for fats like coconut oil or avocado to stay satiated and avoid hunger-induced junk food binges. Also avoid processed foods, which are often laden with unhealthy varieties of vegetable oil.S

Substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream. Plain Greek yogurt is a great swap that can be used on baked potatoes, tacos, or any other dish requiring a dollop of cream.

To Overcome Your Sugar Cravings

Flavor your water. Add cucumber, lemon, or mint to plain water to make it more palatable if you have a sweet tooth.

Don’t skip the chocolate. Rather than completely eliminating all desserts, allow yourself one or two squares of dark chocolate to help satisfy sweet cravings.

Mix your own yogurt. Rather than buying sugary yogurt at the grocery store, opt for plain and add fresh fruit instead.

Cut your sugar addition to coffee in half (or more). If sweetened coffee drinks are your thing, reduce the spoons of sugar. Then do it again once your palate adjusts.

Spice it up. Spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg can be great sugar alternatives in oatmeal, coffee, and tea by tricking your palate into “thinking” you’re eating something sweet.

Importantly, as always, if you would like to talk through this complex topic further, please make time to see one of our Doctors, they will love to help you on your tastebud journey