Easter egg calculator: How guilty should you feel about your binge?

So you're reaching for another Easter egg this long weekend and you tell yourself, "Just one more won't hurt".

This happens another five times and it isn't even lunchtime on Good Friday yet.

Before you know it, you've eaten more than 20 teaspoons of sugar, and that's on top of your regular diet.

It's a common story in the holiday period — especially one increasingly wedded to particular snack foods. So how guilty should you actually feel about it?

First, the scary part about sugar

KPMG performance coach and fitness fiend Andrew May crunched the numbers on the sugar content of the popular Easter items, and it's not great reading.

It's quite scary, the graphic," he admits.

"If you have one of those big Belgian packs, you have to exercise for four to five hours. That's a marathon."

Mr May said Australians already ate an extraordinarily large amount of sugar through items we consider part of normal diets. So adding Easter eggs can really blow this out.

"The average fruit juice has about 10 or 12 teaspoons of sugar and soft drink has 12 or 14 teaspoons," he said.

"If you go, like we did as kids, steak, three veg, a little bit of water and milk, and alcohol in moderation for adults, that's the basics of a diet. That's low in sugar."

So what impact will a binge actually have?

Personal trainer Matt Leitinger has worked in gyms for years and said he often saw the remorseful client doing the walk of shame back to the treadmill after the holiday season.

But when it comes to the Easter splurge, he said it wasn't as bad as some people probably thought.

"You certainly can set back your goals by having a four-day hot cross bun and Easter egg bender," he said.

"But it's hard to see anyone putting on more than 2-3kg.

"If you are training the right way and have built a healthy metabolism the damage shouldn't be too bad."

However, if you combine the chocolate binge with taking an extended break from exercise then you might be in more trouble.

Associate professor in exercise physiology at Victoria University Nigel Stepto told ABC Health and Wellbeing you can lose half your fitness if you don't train at all for a week.

"Of course the marathon runner's fitness would still be greater than someone whose main exercise is walking — they were fitter in the first place," he said.

"But after a week of no training, both would be half as fit as they were the last time they worked out."

Mr Leitinger and Mr May both stress, however, that the key to Easter eating boils down to one word: moderation.

"Everyone needs to enjoy the special occasions, just as long as Easter eggs don't become part of their everyday diet," Mr Leitinger said.

OK, here are some guidelines

Enjoying the Easter season doesn't mean sticking to carrots and hummus, says Mr May.

Instead, you can follow a few simple guidelines.

Go quality over quantity: "Have less of a quality product, rather than gutsing through an entire family block of a no-name budget $1 special."

Choose wisely: "Choose cacao over milk chocolate cocoa. The darker the chocolate, the less sugar, so read labels."

Cut back in other areas: "Reduce sugar from other areas including cutting out soft drink all together, and reduce alcohol intake and cut back fruit juice, rich sauces, and energy bars."

Rev the engine: "Try to do a little bit of extra activity with family and friends. Which is what Easter is about for a lot of us, catching up with family and friends, [so] drag some people out and do more exercise."

Mr May doesn't want to seem like a total killjoy, so his final piece of advice is to just take it a bit easy.

"There's 52 weeks in the year and this is one week," he said.

"Blow it a little bit, but be mindful and do a little bit more movement."

And if all that fails, just try to enjoy the fun as much as these four-year-olds making eggs and going on a chocolate hunt.