I don’t know about you, but when I think about Easter – alongside fateful memories of happily decorating eggs – I picture ravenous children with chocolate-stained fingers, baskets filled to the brim with tempting sweets, and can even imagine the feeling after over-indulging in less than diet-friendly foods. Easter, although a joyful time, commonly ends in end-of-day regret.
Holidays are supposed to be for enjoying time with family and friends, not overindulging in brightly colored, sugar-coated, bird-shaped marshmallows. While the scavenging is fun, there are other things to appreciate besides foil-covered chocolates and limited edition pastel-colored m&ms. This Easter, shift your focus from food to family and appreciate Easter in a new light by introducing new traditions that will not only help you bond, but create new memories and instill healthier values in your loved ones’ minds.
1. Limit the candy inside the eggs
It’s not necessarily the candy inside the eggs that’s the exciting part, it’s the fact that there are eggs in general. Especially for smaller children who are completely perplexed as to how the eggs could’ve gotten there, Easter egg hunters are happy to get anything, so use this to your advantage! Fill your eggs with things other than chocolate: stickers, lip balm, small coins, or whatever will fit! Places like the dollar store, Walgreens, and CVS have an abundance of low-cost options sure to bring smiles to scavengers’ faces.
2. Turn the egg search into an intensive scavenger hunt
Where’s the fun in finding eggs in plain sight? Have a little fun and hide your eggs in unique places – floating atop pool inflatables, resting on your fence, underneath heavier toys, or whatever you deem fit! This way, some of those chocolates will be burned off before anyone can even get to them.
3. Set a cost for every clue
Always end up with some eggs that just can’t be found and have to be pointed out? Forget the freebies, make egg hunters work for their goodies! Before you hand out clues, make the searcher perform an athletic task – run across the yard one time, do 5 jumping jacks, hula-hoop for 20 seconds, throw a ball into a basket from afar, whatever! Don’t go crazy and turn egg hunting into an Olympic sport, but make sure everyone’s up and moving!
4. Prevent a chocolate-induced coma
Along with limiting the physical amount of candy, limit things slightly further and set an amount of candy allowed to be consumed by your scavengers. This way, you’re proactively disallowing a 3-course meal of sugar from happening.
5. Set out more “real” eggs than plastic ones
Eggs are great sources of protein, and egg whites are even approved on RM3, so the more the merrier! Decorate an extra few ‘real’ eggs to be set out by the Easter bunny and you probably won’t hear any complaints, especially come decoration time when everyone’s fighting over the amount of eggs they got to decorate. Added bonus: you have healthy breakfasts already prepared for the whole family for the next few days… score!
*Try our Salsa Egg White Bites recipe, available on the RedMountain Weight Loss app
