Burning Off Your Easter Treats

Easter was once a primarily religious celebration, but for our modern and primarily unreligious society, it’s become a time to rest, recuperate and overindulge on all our favourite sweet Easter treats.

From chocolate to hot cross buns and Easter eggs, the real question now is this: how can you burn it off?

Well, we have the answers right here, whether you want to hear them or not! Turns out those Easter treats don’t just have more calories than you thought, they’re also going to take longer to work off than you might have thought. So read on, if you dare, and see how you can avoid adding centimetres to your waistline this Easter.

1. Hot Cross Buns (155 calories)

They’re the ultimate symbol of Easter, traditionally eaten on Good Friday. But in the modern world, these bad boys are available just a few short days after New Year’s Eve, making it pretty easy to overindulge on the sweet, raisin-studded buns. Now of course many people choose to eat these delightful treats toasted and slathered in butter, so the number of calories they pack varies greatly depending on what you have on them, and how many you eat.

The average hot cross bun is a minor 155 calories, more than a slice of bread but easily burned off with just over 30 minutes of yoga or tai chi, or a walk at a speed of around 5km/hr. If you can’t stop at one, two hot cross can be burned off with a 50 minute run, but you have to run an extra 30 minutes on top of that if you’ve added butter and jam. Of course, if you want to enjoy one of those indulgent chocolate hot cross buns, we’re talking one and a half hours of yoga or an hour of general lap swimming.

2. Creme Egg (180 calories)

Not everyone is a fan of the Creme Egg, a once solely Easter dessert that is now essentially available all year around. Basically, they’re a chocolate egg casing filled with coloured fondant. Despite being pretty small in size, the average Creme Egg fits in a pretty sizeable 180 calories that you’ll want to burn off if you aren’t looking to bulk up. The good news is it’s not as hard as it seems, just as long as you aren’t chowing down on handfuls of these little things!

Burning off a Creme Egg can be as easy as 19 minutes of skipping with a jump rope, or doing 10 to 15 minutes of burpees, preferably after letting your stomach settle. You can also do a 20-minute run or a 50-minute walk. You can also go shopping for an hour where you push the trolley, and you’ll actually burn a little extra!

3. Small Lindt Bunny (275 calories)

If you’re a grown up, the little Lindt bunnies are a pretty good representation of your Easter treats. You’re likely to be giving and receiving them at work, at home, and among family. With their little tinkling bell, they’re something of an Easter icon in their own way, making them hard to resist. Well, they aren’t that bad, but these delicious chocolate rabbits do pack a calorie punch of 275 for just 50g of bunny.

Now burning that off comes in a couple of flavours. You can embody the rabbit and do 80-90 jump squats, or a blowout 75 minutes of various kinds of housework. If you got a gym membership, 30 minutes of general exercise on the elliptical trainer will do it. So will one hour of brisk walking in the great outdoors. What are you waiting for?

4. Bag of Mini Eggs (445 calories)

Cadbury’s Mini Eggs seem harmless enough, but the problem is they’re so small that it’s easy to forget just how many you’ve eaten. Before you know it, you’ve managed to munch your way from “I’ll just have one” to “this bag is empty” and you’ve consumed way more calories than you meant to. All you can really do is carefully watch how many you eat, or burn them off once they’ve been eaten and enjoyed.

Well, the average bag of Mini Eggs contains about 445 calories, which is a decent amount to burn off. You can choose to get your booty moving with around an hour of energetic dance, like Zumba. Alternatively, you could try to do the same amount of time lifting kettle bells, which is sure to work out your chocolate-filled body! Over an hour vigorously playing with your children will also burn those bad boys off.

5. Average Chocolate Egg (600-800 calories)

Now the average chocolate egg, which we now consider to be pretty basic, is a staple of your Easter weekend diet. Let’s be honest, even if you tell yourself you aren’t going to buy one for yourself, you always manage to eat a bit of everyone else, including your forgetful children. The best way to deal with these chocolate eggs, if you’re not looking to increase your pant size, is not to eat them all in one sitting. Spreading them out over a few days makes them easier to burn off.

If you are planning on scoffing the entire thing at once though, you’re looking at 600-800 calories depending on the brand. That’s one hour of fast-paced rowing on a machine, or a high impact aerobics class, or a very vigorous bike ride. Of course, if you happen to choose one of the more indulgent eggs, you’re looking at a much higher calorie count, some more than 1,200 calories. For this, you’ll need to run more than 15 kilometres, or wind together a few solid hours of various exercises.

Now that you know what they’re worth, are you still indulging over Easter?