How can I make up for a very unhealthy lunch?

First of all, stop being so hard on yourself. A fast food burger and fries is hardly the end of the world (or the end of a healthy eating plan.)

Second, just eat a sensible dinner and get back on track. It really is that simple.

You could do an hour’s exercise just to make yourself feel better and have some veg soup for tea

Don’t beat yourself up over it. Eat a good dinner, maybe something like smoked salmon, a green vegetable and cooked carrots.

Right..let it go.

You can’t ‘make up’ for it, but you can have a light dinner, fruit and yogurt, a salad and get back to it tomorrow.

I’m going to a dressy dinner event tonight, had a hard boiled egg and some yogurt in prep for major indulgence tonight.

Enjoy the moment or whats the point?

Fast food once in a while is hardly the end of a healthy lifestyle. Just eat a healthy dinner and don’t eat fast food everyday and you will be fine :)

How were the fries?

@Adirondackwannabe – I think they haven’t launched them in Austin yet because they seemed the same to me.

@holli Welcome to fluther. The real trick to eating well is budgetting the foods you eat. As long as you work within your dietary guidelines you can throw in a burger, fries, etc from time to time.

Jog home.

Salad for supper, hour-long living room dance marathon.

@aprilsimnel – That sounds like fun. I’ll be American Bandstand-ing in the living room tonight! Thank you.

Don’t beat yourself up about it. Part of staying healthy is being able to enjoy life, and not saying “I will NEVER eat (this or that) ever again.”

The longer you spend fixing past mistakes, the worse you’ll feel about them, which can be really discouraging and depressing. Second, if you get into the habit of “fixing’ mistakes, you’re more likely to make mistakes in the future, saying “I’ll just work it off later.”

Don’t kill yourself trying to make it up with huge caloric deficits or lots of extra exercise. I looked it up, and a Wendy’s ¼ lb. burger is 470 calories. I don’t know what the nutritional information is for the new fries, but let’s be generous and assume they’re 530 calories to round it up to 1000 calories for lunch. That’s not even a third of a pound. Chances are, ONE “splurge” like this is not even going to make a difference on the scale. You may see a slight jump but that’s just water weight from the high sodium (especially in the fries) and that will go away with a couple of days of normal healthy eating.

Just get back to normal as fast as possible, eat what you’d ordinarily eat and exercise as much as you ordinarily would. If you want, you can spread out some extra exercise over the next couple of weeks to burn off 200 calories.

go for a walk RIGHT NOW! so you’ll get over that logey feeling. Then for dinner raw vegetables in a salad with a very light hint of a dressing, and water or cold tea (no sugar!).
and as people said, easy on yourself. If one meal could kill you, there’d be bodies piled up outside McDonalds.

I always eat the no no foods once or twice a week just so I don’t feel deprived and eat junk constantly. It seems to me life is about balance and really, I need some junk to balance out all the healthy stuff I eat most of the time!

I don’t think Wendy’s is in Australia, I miss the pasta and salad bars! and those chocolate malt shakes.

I wouldn’t worry about the fast food too much. Hey you can walk outside and get ran over by a drunk driver. Just go for a walk or do some type of exercise for a few minutes. Do you have a juicer? Juicing different vegetables is very healthy and tastes real good. If you don’t already have a juicer then maybe consider purchasing one.

If it is just a one off thing don’t worry about it.

The biggest mistake most diets make, is totally banning a food or group of foods. If it is something you like, just limit yourself to eating it once in a while (once a month or once every 2 months) as a treat, and budget your weekly calories to balance the meal.

If I tried to stay within the budget of my diet on a daily basis I would fail. If I budget my calories for a week at a time, I am more able to hit my goals.