August 22, 2005 | 8:00pm

Every friday night I allow myself a treat. I go to Wendy's for a little dietary impropriety. I figured I exercise every day and eat healthy the rest of the time, so how much harm could a once a week splurge do? But the scale hasnt been budging and fast food isn't exactly known for producing a svelt body, so I decided to find out how much harm my splurge was doing me.

The grand total? 1,300 calories and 63 grams of fat. Normally, I don't have more than 1300 calories a day, so my little splurge is the equivalent of an entire day's calories. And it would take 3 days to consume that much fat, even longer for sat and trans fat. But the real shocker was sodium - 2230 mg, which is way too much by any standard and especially bad for me, since high sodium is a big no-no for kidney stone sufferers.

So my little splurge was anything but little, disaster is more like it, and fast food has now been banished from my life. Granted, I did look forward to and enjoy my weekly treat, but there are healthier things I can splurge on. Hell, I could eat five bags of M&Ms and consume less calories. Or a bucket of lard and a salt block. But I think I'll go with the M&Ms.

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