This is how they get us: they go one of three ways.

First, your standard chocolate companies transform chocolate, sugar, nuts and/or marshmallows into darling shapes like bunnies, chicks, and lambs.

Second – and this is new in our lifetime – the candy giants shape their treats into sweet shapes too, like Reese’s Pieces (Easter Eggs Mini Carton), Twizzlers (small red bunnies), Butterfingers (Nesteggs), Starburst (jelly beans), Tootsie Roll (eggs), and so forth.

Same flavor all year long but now Easter-shaped (soon to be molded into Halloween-, December-, and Valentine-calories too).

And third, luxury brands of chocolate are in the game too. A quick tour of the fancy’s:

• Harvey Nichols’s creates a series of ceramic eggs like his Eggs with Ears – Ceramic Easter Egg & Milk Chocolate Truffles (splashy and fun art), $160, and Eggs with Legs, Daisy Edition, $90.
• Godiva sells a Collectible Beaded Easter Egg, $50.
• Hotel Chocolat offers their Classic Ostrich Easter Egg (a little over two pounds) with gold-foiled chocolate inside, $110.

Your Bathing Suit Loves You and Wants You to Be Happy

Somehow the beautiful Easter holiday has morphed into a 10,000 calorie free-for-all involving many of the tastiest ingredients on the planet like chocolate and friends mashed together so that we can celebrate the holiday to (our stomach’s) fullest. And we know, it’s not just candy, but we partake of large celebratory Easter meals with friends and family too.

Meaning, not only must we stay alert for the festive calories of November and December, but these days we’re looking at an enormous Easter inhale too.

Quick background: I have more than a few opinions on how to best deal with the holiday-calories having lost 55 lbs. in my 40s and maintaining the loss – through trial and error – for 16 years now.

So, with Easter just around the corner, join me in saving yourself from running in terror from your bathing suit come June by committing to the following in April:

Journal About Future-You

Future-you is, you know, the gal you’d love to be when you awaken the day after Easter. Come Monday, April 18, do you want to wake up feeling slightly icky from all the food you polished off? Or would you rather prance happily towards your new jeans with complete confidence that they’ll fit beautifully?

Art of the Mini-Meal

The day of Easter morning, quell your appetite by purposely “ruining your meal.” Snack on something healthy 30 minutes before the treat-show appears or the Easter meal goes down. Healthy mini-meals include an apple or banana with a teaspoon of peanut butter, a bowl of baby tomatoes and petite carrots, or toast and a hard-boiled egg.

Embrace Your Cold Bag

Long story short, I never leave home without my cold-tote filled with mini-meals.

Micro-Rewards

A science center we once visited with our kids had the coolest “rat basketball” show. Watching the little guys scramble to plop the ball into the tiny basket was a fabulous example of how micro-rewards work. To receive a pellet, the rats had to first sink the basketball. Our rat-treat might be a new nail polish color, an hour alone to read, or taking the car for a good washing.

You and I Graze All Year Long

Maybe back in Ms. Ingalls-Wilder days special foods happened once a year (if that). Even the uber-rich, like the Vanderbilts, didn’t have access to food like you and I have today. That said, don’t con yourself into thinking that the Easter foods are a “once a year thing”. They’re not.

We can get our hands on chocolate, ham and hot biscuits 365/24/7. Write this truism on sticky notes and tape them everywhere: bathroom mirrors, the fridge, your steering wheel and so on.

Gaining after 50 is not “inevitable” as we’ve long been led to believe. Don’t let the calories “just happen,” meet the holiday weekend head-on with solid tactics and watch how excited summer-you is about to be.

Have you ever used mini-meals to avoid overeating? Do you tend to give yourself permission to overeat on holidays? What do you think about living from a “future-you” mindset?