Eating a meal high in saturated fat could do immediate harm to your blood vessels. But if you just inhaled an entire carton of gelato, don’t panic: A study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology suggests that going for a walk after a high-fat meal may reduce the food’s effect on your arteries. Researchers compared the heart health of eight 25-year olds after three scenarios:

• eating a low-fat breakfast
• eating a high-fat breakfast
• eating a high-fat breakfast and then going for a 45-minute walk

While the arteries narrowed in the nonexercisers who ate the fatty meal, the arteries in the exercisers dilated (even more than in the low-fat eaters). So take a walk after a your next big celebratory dinner and undo some of the damage. Just don’t think a stroll will wipe the slate clean and regularly engage in binge-and-walk behavior.