.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged… and, thankfully, I left Canada almost immediately after writing that. I haven’t mentioned it on here before, but I’m currently on the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and we started our tour up in Canada. We worked the show through in Banff, Alberta for a week and made our way through Alberta shortly after that.

It drove me insane. The money’s not money, the food made me gassy… it just wasn’t altogether a good experience.

Although I do love a Tim Horton’s.

Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge at this point. We’ve been back in America for quite a while, and I’m getting to explore parts of the country that I never thought I would. As a result, I figured I’d check back in with this blog to talk about experiences I’m having on tour.

To kick things off, I figured I’d write about my new favorite book. It’s pretty hard to maintain a normal weight on tour — a week long sit-down engagement in any city is a rarity, and we’re more accustomed to one or two-night engagements… which means supermarkets are a rarity and fast food is a must. Apart from being a shock to your digestive system, fast food is generally known to be lacking in nutritional value. For quite a while, I had switched to sit-down restaurants like Chili’s and T.G.I.Friday’s, but I soon discovered that the appetizers and entrees at these places could be worse for you than their fast food counterparts. With all these factors working against you, visiting the hotel fitness center really isn’t even worth it. What good is slaving over a treadmill for hours on end if you’re just going to put all that crap back into your body?

Luckily, the editors of Men’s Health have put together the book “Eat This, Not That!” Unlike other diet plans, this book doesn’t force you to sacrifice eating certain types of foods. Instead, this book focuses on what foods you should eat at your favorite fast food restaurants and sit-down chains and which ones you should avoid. I was shocked to learn certain things about my favorite restaurants that I would never have thought about otherwise. For example:

- A Chili’s Bloomin’ Onion contains over 2,000 calories
- You can eat almost 500 fewer calories at Chipotle by ordering a burrito bowl without rice instead of a burrito
- A McDonald’s Quarter Pounder can be nutritionally better for you than the Grilled Chicken Club.

This book is loaded with all sorts of good info. I’m hoping it helps with my new health goals. I’ll let everyone know how it works as I continue using it on the road… but for now, I’d recommend skimming through it at your local Barnes & Noble. You’ll be glad you did!