Ah, Mexico. With a mere 10 days until I board a plane for Cancun via Atlanta, it's time for some prep work. I don't know about you, but travel has a funny way of playing tricks on my tummy, and Mexico tends to play the cruelest games of all. For that reason - and with a nod to my health-focused New Year's goals - I recently (on a whim) snatched up a two-week cleanse at Whole Foods.

In an unassuming green box, the "cleanse," a product by Whole Foods in-store brand, Everyday 365, neatly houses three bottles of supplements ($16.99). I glanced at the directions as I picked up the box, noted that the first week required only one pill in the evenings and thought, simply, that it sounded easy enough. Fast forward 24 hours, when I sit down and re-read the directions, realizing - with a pang in my stomach - that I need to swallow eight rather large pills in the evenings, and another four in the A.M. during week one. Yowza. As it turned out, the large, bitter supplements really weren't all that bad. And whatever discomfort I felt when downing the capsules was completely offset by the swooshy feeling of my digestive system purging itself. Swooshy in a good way; not at all in an uncontrolled way...

Suffice it to say, in the middle of week two, I'm announcing myself a convert. Never having tackled a cleanse, I feel like it's now a process I might want to implement a couple times a year. A tune up, per se. Like, around the time I go to get my oil changed. Or something.

Now, I only have to avoid Montezuma's Revenge.