If you made a gigantic batch of granola for your teenager in hopes that they will choose this healthy option, all of your good intentions will fly out the window if they eat the whole thing in one sitting. Package snacks in small ziplock bags or tupperware. Even if you purchased a bag of snacks instead of making it, you can portion it out when you get home. Ask your teen to help you portion out snacks for the week. This is a great time to teach them about portion control. Mindless overeating often happens because of distractions. It's very easy to lose track of portion sizes if you are watching television or flipping through pictures on Instagram. It takes about twenty minutes for your brain get the memo that your stomach is full. The benefit of pre-packaged snacks is that they tell you exactly how many calories they contain. Foods you make at home are often a little trickier. Download them on your own phone, or encourage your teen to get them. Try some of these apps to help you determine what the correct portions are: Fitpal Piatto

Summary: Package snacks individually. Stop teenagers from eating in front of screens. Encourage teens to eat slowly so that their brain recognizes when they are full. Use apps that help you and your teen understand portion size.

You don't have to pretend to be someone that you're not. Be true to a personality that fits you, and that feels natural to you. Uniqueness in your personality is itself an attractive quality. Avoid seeing your personality as static. You will likely change over time. You may become less shy. You may become more open-minded. Or maybe, you become more stubborn as you grow older. Whatever your personality is or becomes, it is adaptable. It is uniquely yours, and you have the ability to adapt it, change it, or keep it as is. Ultimately, your personality may tied to your sense of happiness. You may wonder how you can change your personality to be a happier and healthier you. It starts with finding your inner happiness. What gives you peace? What makes you feel calm, relaxed, and rested? Learn ways to cultivate happiness in yourself. Do relaxing activities. Meditate. Listen to music. Take a walk in nature. Take time for yourself. Remember that developing a sense of yourself and your own unique personality starts and ends with loving yourself. Appreciate who you are and what you have to offer to others. Believe in yourself. Avoid negative talk or thinking. If there are others putting you down, avoid defining yourself on their terms. You determine who you are. Find supports that boost your positive personality traits. Find others that welcome you, and make you feel loved. Share with them your concerns. Be kind to yourself every day.

Summary: Remember that each person is unique. Find your inner happiness. Focus on loving yourself.

While South Carolina is the only state that has outlawed tobacco screens entirely it's important to know that more than half the states in the United States have provisions in place that prevent employers from establishing hiring practices or incorporating punishment based on your activities outside of work, including tobacco use. If you live in one of the 29 states with these provisions in place, you don't need to submit for a tobacco screen willfully. Click here for a state-by-state breakdown of tobacco screening laws. "Tobacco tests" are usually performed by screening for cotinine, and are usually some combination of mouth swabs, urinalysis, and blood testing. Cotinine is the primary metabolite of nicotine. Nicotine leaves the body in a few hours, but cotinine has a longer half-life, and is usually present for up to a week. Cotinine has a half-life of 16 hours, meaning that half of all the trace leaves your body every 16 hours, or so. If you're a light smoker, most of it should be gone in 48 hours, depending on how much you smoke, but most tests will pick up trace amounts, especially in the mouth swab. Cotinine tests screen for smokable as well as smokeless tobacco, including vape pens and other e-cigarettes. Depending on how much you smoke, there's no way of knowing how much time you'll need to be all the way in the clear, but with the right combination of techniques, you can be fairly confident that you'll pass if you stop using any kind of nicotine 3-4 days before your test for lighter smokers and 5-7 days for heavier smokers. Read the next section to learn how to quit for a week, or more. If you smoke in excess of a pack a day, may need to quit smoking farther out ahead of your test. It can't ever hurt to stop earlier, if possible. If you're a social smoker, or only smoke occasionally, just make sure you quit a few days leading up to the test and you should be fine. Any time you've got to pass a urine screen and you're worried about cutting it close, start increasing the amount of fluids you're drinking throughout the day. Drink plain filtered water. It's good to drink as much as two liters per day, or about half a gallon, to keep your body flushing itself regularly. Drink warm water with a little bit of lemon in it. To break it up, try warm water with garlic, leeks, or ginger to help your body eliminate fluids. Drink lots of herbal tea, containing ginger, dandelion root, juniper, which have natural diuretic properties. Drink lots of natural cranberry juice. Most commercial drinks labelled "cran" something or other are really low in actual cranberry juice and high in sugar and apple. If you can, try to get real cranberry juice that's 100% cranberry for the best diuretic effect. Go to any head shop and you can find a variety of expensive beverages that all guarantee you can pass any drug or tobacco screen and keep smoking right up to the test. Read the ingredients. These drinks are usually just some combination of fruit juices and electrolytes that you'll pay an arm and a leg for, which won't be any more effective than drinks you can get for free, or for much cheaper. Use some smarts and avoid throwing money away on these drinks. If trace amounts show up on your screen, it is possible to blame a smoky bar, a smoky band practice, or other possible second-hand smoke encounters, although this may conflict with prior questionnaire information that you may have filled out in anticipation of the test. Most cotinine screens are performed in the workplace for insurance purposes. If a trace amount showed up, you can usually get out of it pretty easily with an excuse like this. If you smoke the day of the test, the amounts will be much higher, though, and you won't be able to blame second-hand smoke for that. You still need to quit, for a few days at least.
Summary: Make sure the tobacco test is being performed legally. Understand how the screen works. Stop using all kinds of tobacco at least 5-7 days before the test. Flush out your system by drinking diuretics. Don't blow money on "detox" drinks. Blame second-hand smoke.