I cut out chocolate first as that was my worst offender. I had the occasional rice cake with dark chocolate, or some 85% until I could do without them
Once I had got over the chocolate cravings (about 7 weeks) I dropped any obvious processed sugar - cakes, biscuits, syrups.
I started drinking a glass of water before drinking any other type of drink. I didn’t want to deny myself any thing other than chocolate at the beginning, but slaking my thirst first naturally reduced other drinks.
I gradually started eating more carefully. High protein and high fibre and gradually less white carbs. I noticed that if I eat breakfast, I get hungry again around 11 and 2 and I started eating quite substantially then - meals rather than snacks. When I do that I’m not very hungry in the evenings. I fell into intermittant fasting then (just a twelve hour window that I flex with my period cycle).
Then I got interested in trying to eliminate ultra processed food. I’m not bothered about sugar content of real food and I eat a good bit of fruit and sweeter veg like carrots. When I was eating sugar daily I couldn’t taste sweetness in veg, but now I can. Actually everything tastes better and I really enjoy food.
I’ve tried and relapsed several times (this time was motivated by a health scare) so I know that there are a lot of minor ailments that clear up when you cut out sugar that I tend to forget until I relapse. The ones I can think of are almost no headaches, I don’t get that skin crawling sensation, no restless legs at night, no little spots in my hair line, rarely any cold sores, no mouth ulcers.
The social pressure can be hard to deal with. It takes very little to set off weeks of cravings that take a lot of willpower to resist. Whereas if I don’t eat anything sugary I don’t desire it. People don’t tend to offer ex smokers “just one cigarette” but get annoyed if you won’t have dessert.