Above Average – Details, episodes & analysis

You keep trying new supplements, new workouts, new morning routines, and something still feels off. The thing nobody is checking is usually the thing running underneath all of it.

Dr. Sam Riley is back for round two. This time we go deep on blood sugar.. why it sits at the root of hair loss, insomnia, weight that won't budge, hormone issues, fertility struggles, and the anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere.

What You'll Learn

→ The everyday symptom most women write off as "just hangry" that's actually a red flag for something much bigger

→ Why intermittent fasting is making a huge group of women feel worse, and how to know if you're in that group

→ The four foods Dr. Sam pulls first when someone says "I've tried everything and nothing is working"

→ What a continuous glucose monitor actually shows you in two weeks (and why the first week you shouldn't change a thing)

→ The protein number that makes women's jaws hit the floor, and the math that makes it doable

→ How food order at a single meal can completely change the way your body responds

Wake Up Different

Dr. Sam kept coming back to the same thing.. consistency with the basics. That's 90% of the work right there. Wake Up Different is the 28-day rebuild that turns the basics.. protein first, regulated, fueled.. from a daily decision into your default.

👉 https://alexpayetta.com/wakeupdifferent

Connect With Us

Lorissa Violet

lorissaviolet.com | @lorissaviolet

Alex Payetta

alexpayetta.com | @alexpayetta

Dr. Sam Riley

drsamriley.com | @dr.samriley

Mentioned in This Episode

• Ashley Barrett Wellness — Virtual Nutritional Therapy Practitioner
• Diabetes with Dani — Creator of Conquer Your Diabetes, a Type 1 program for kids and women
• Cyrex Labs — food sensitivity and autoimmune testing

Timestamps

0:00 Why blood sugar is almost every woman's first problem

4:12 Hangry, sweaty, anxious, emotional, the Snickers commercial response

8:45 What a continuous glucose monitor actually tells you

14:20 Hair thinning, insomnia, weight that won't budge

19:08 Cortisol, chronic stress, and the insulin receptor shut-down

24:30 The protein math for women and how to actually hit it

30:15 Food order at a meal and why it completely changes blood sugar response

36:40 PCOS, fertility, and the vegan-to-pregnant story

42:50 Diet Coke culture, carbonation, and what it does to digestion

48:22 The four foods Dr. Sam pulls first

54:10 Kids, tantrums, night waking, and the parasite conversation nobody is having

1:02:05 Workouts, fasting, and fueling your body

1:08:40 Where to actually start today

You've tried the charts, the timers, the consequences, the gentle approach, and your kid is still melting down every morning before anyone's out the door. What Randy Free teaches is the middle ground many parents are actually looking for, somewhere between gentle parenting and old-school discipline, and it works for all kid (even neurodivergent ones).

Randy Free is a family counselor and retired international tax partner who spent 30 years in high-pressure corporate environments before building the PEACE-ful Parenting Process for neurodivergent kids and the high-achieving parents trying to figure out what actually works.

What You'll Learn

• A simple framework for deciding which battles to fight and which ones to let go, so you stop trying to correct everything at once.
• What's actually happening in your child's brain during a meltdown, and why your calm matters more than your consequence.
• The story Randy tells about kicking his own son's door down in anger, and what his son remembered years later (it's not the lesson).

Mentioned in This Episode

• Randy Free's PEACE-ful Parenting Process at coachtoresilience.com
• The PEACE-ful Parenting Self Assessment (free download): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t5k06pPR-OeTqDBiMIJh_bE4j9phnhra/view

Take the Stress Loop Quiz

This whole episode comes back to how the mom's nervous system sets the tone for the entire house. If you've been running at a pace that leaves no room for patience, that shows up in every interaction with your kids. The Stress Loop quiz helps you figure out where your capacity is actually breaking down so you can start building it back.

alexpayetta.com/quiz

Connect With Us

Alex Payetta at alexpayetta.com and @alexpayetta on Instagram

Lorissa Violet at lorissaviolet.com and @lorissaviolet on Instagram

Timestamps

0:00 Meet Randy Free and his path from tax partner to parenting counselor

2:45 The PEACE acronym and how peaceful parenting differs from gentle parenting

6:30 The parenting quadrant, choosing your battles with red, blue, green, and yellow

12:15 Alex and Lorissa on the consistency struggle between partners

18:00 Nature vs. nurture and how neurodivergent brains process emotions differently

23:30 Mirror neurons and why your kids absorb your stress

29:00 The volcano exercise for teaching kids their own warning signs

35:00 Repairing after you lose your temper

40:45 When kids question authority and where to draw the line

48:00 Over-scheduling and what transitions do to a child's nervous system

55:00 Structure vs. flexibility for neurodivergent kids

1:00:00 Parenting a highly intelligent child who is emotionally behind

1:05:00 How to work with Randy and where to find him

Two moms break down every system they use to run their households, businesses, and families without losing their minds.

If you've ever felt like you're doing a million things and none of it is running smoothly, this one's for you.

What You'll Learn

→ The weekly rhythm that replaced seven nightly "what's for dinner" spirals with one 30-minute decision

→ How a $75/week hire fits into a system that runs your entire household without you holding every piece

→ The thing Alex does every single day that most people don't even know exists, and it's saving her hours

Grab the Free Guide

Everything we talked about in this episode comes back to one thing: knowing where your time is actually going so you can take it back. Alex put together a free guide called "4 Proven Strategies to Get Back 10 Hours Every Week" that walks you through the exact audit and filtering process she uses with every single client. If this episode fired you up, start here.

👉 https://alexpayetta.com/createtime

Connect With Us

Alex Payetta

https://alexpayetta.com | https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/

Lorissa Violet

https://lorissaviolet.com | https://www.instagram.com/lorissaviolet/

Mentioned in This Episode

Butcher Box https://www.butcherbox.com

Thrive Market https://www.thrivemarket.com/lorissa

Mixbook https://www.mixbook.com

Whisper Flow https://whisperflow.com

Resonant https://resonant.app

The Short Years https://theshortyears.com

Asana https://asana.com

Timestamps

0:00 Life updates (Japan, South by Southwest, sleep struggles)

12:00 Meal systems and why we eat the same thing every day

19:24 Why Lorissa picks sleep over the 5:30 AM workout

23:31 Buying back your time before anything else

26:45 Revenge bedtime procrastination

37:03 What happened when a client got a task management system

44:00 The $75/week part-time assistant breakdown

57:00 Car bins, mudroom staging, diaper bag systems

62:00 Kids artwork system that keeps memories without clutter

68:42 Why Lorissa starts every day praying for discernment

76:36 How AI is changing the way Alex runs her business

We have our first guest ever on the pod, Dr. Sam Riley. He's a chiropractor who practices frequency medicine, which means he looks at the whole person: structural, emotional, and biochemical.

We get into why "fixing your nervous system" might be missing the point, what's actually behind high cortisol and that tired-but-wired feeling, and why emotions show up in the body more than most people realize.

What we cover:

→ Dr. Sam's origin story (and the moment he walked out of his allergist's office at 14)

→ What frequency medicine actually is and how it differs from Western medicine

→ Why your nervous system might be doing exactly what it's supposed to do

→ The connection between emotions and physical symptoms

→ Alex's fertility journey and what shifted when she addressed a subconscious block

→ High cortisol, fight or flight, and the "tired but wired" cycle

→ Blood sugar, hydration, and minerals—the foundations most people skip

→ Why working on emotional trauma is just as important as seeing a chiropractor

→ Practical takeaways for high-achieving women who can't overhaul their lives overnight

Hosted by @LorissaViolet and @AlexPayetta

Links:

To find Alex:

→ Follow @alexpayetta https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/

→ Download Free Guide How to get 10+ Hours Back / Week https://alexpayetta.myflodesk.com/createtime

→ Learn more about at www.alexpayetta.com

To find Lorissa:

→ Follow @lorissaviolet

→ LORISSAVIOLET.com

To find Dr. Sam Riley:

→ Dr. Sam Riley on Instagram: @dr.samriley

→ Book with Dr. Sam: www.RileyChiro.com

We're back for Episode 2, and today we're getting into delegation - why it's so hard for high achievers, where perfectionism sneaks in, and how to figure out what to hold close versus what to let go.

We also go off on some tangents (as we do) about childhood, how our pasts shape our parenting, what it means to keep growing instead of chasing "perfect," and why nothing has to be permanent.

What we cover:

→ Why the most successful people struggle the most with delegating

→ The two buckets for deciding what to outsource

→ How we approach childcare completely differently (and why both work)

→ The real reason perfectionism keeps you stuck

→ The myth of "balance" and why gray area is the goal

Hosted by @LorissaViolet and @AlexPayetta

To find Alex:

→ Follow @alexpayetta https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/

→ Download Free Guide How to get 10+ Hours Back / Week https://alexpayetta.myflodesk.com/createtime

→ Learn more about at www.alexpayetta.com

To find Lorissa:

→ Follow @lorissaviolet

→ LORISSAVIOLET.com

To find Alex:

→ Learn more about private coaching: https://alexpayetta.com/private-coaching

→ Get clear on your finances with The Money Map: https://alexpayetta.com/money-map

→ Follow her on Instagram @alexpayetta https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/

To find Lorissa:

LORISSAVIOLET.com

@lorissaviolet

Try Batch Protein Rice!

https://amzn.to/3NFxaGD

Eight months of broken sleep and a head full of shoulds.

This is the mini where Alex talks about sleep-training Scarlett, and the hardest part of it actually being just undoing everything she'd told herself about what she was supposed to do. Lorissa, who's immune to the shoulds, has great advice on how to ignore the conflicting noise.

What We Cover

→ Why "what's best for the baby" isn't what you think

→ How anti-sleep-training messaging kept Alex questioning her own intuition for eight months straight before she called it

→ Why the "shoulds" in motherhood can sneak up on you, and what it means to "be your own camp"

If You're Running on Empty

Alex got through eight months of broken sleep because she had the routines in place to take care of herself. If yours aren't holding, Wake Up Different is the 28-day rebuild.

👉 alexpayetta.com/wake-up-different

Connect With Us

Lorissa Violet

lorissaviolet.com | @lorissaviolet

Alex Payetta

alexpayetta.com | @alexpayetta

Timestamps

• 0:00 Alex is finally sleeping
• 1:30 Eight months of broken sleep and the home birth community
• 4:00 Co-sleeping, home birth, and why they get tied together
• 7:00 Identity, camps, and the should spiral
• 10:00 Weaning Scarlett and letting the baby decide
• 13:00 "Be your own camp"

Nobody warns you that getting dressed postpartum is going to make you cry before church.

Lorissa and Alex talk about body changes after kids, the identity shift that comes with them, and what actually helps.

What We Cover:

- The postpartum closet meltdown nobody warns you about and why it costs you more than time

- How Lorissa went from always being "the smallest" to gaining 80 lbs and completely rebuilding her relationship with her body

- The one closet move that stopped mornings from turning into a full emotional spiral

Connect With Us:

Alex Payetta:

https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/ and www.alexpayetta.com

Lorissa Violet:

https://www.instagram.com/lorissaviolet/ and https://www.lorissaviolet.com