Meet the Healthy Weight Loss dietitians Team: The Weeknight Dinners We Actually Make
There's a particular kind of tired that hits at 5:45 on a Tuesday when the work day concludes and second shift begins. Either you're tired or overstimulated or both — kids are hungry, everyone's worn out, and music, sports, and school aren't finished for the day yet.
We're dietitians, admin, and owners, and we live there too.
So we asked everyone on the Healthy Weight Loss team the same question: what's the meal you actually make on a weeknight? Not the impressive one. Not the one for the photo. The one that goes on the table when nobody has any energy left.
Three of us cook early and slow, and let the appliance do it. Three cook fast, in one pan. One uses an Instant Pot, which is what the first group reaches for when they forgot to be the first group and the meat isn't thawed or the crockpot never got turned on.
It's the same move from different angles — relying on a strategy and not willpower. The slow cooker borrows energy from your past self — the decision gets made at 8am, back when you still had some. The one-pan meal barely spends any to begin with. What nobody is doing is relying on willpower at 5:45, because by then we're done making decisions.
Meet the Team & Our Recipes!
Kayley George, MS, RD, LD — Founder & Owner
Kayley started as a weight loss dietitian with a specific frustration: the women she worked with didn't need more discipline; they needed a plan that fit the life they already had. After two years running a meal prep company in Houston, she moved her work online and launched the Ditch the Diet program in 2019. Since then, she and the team have helped over 600 women boost their confidence, build sustainable habits, and transform their health for good. When she's not working, she's planning her next trip — she's been to every continent except Antarctica.
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken and Veggies
Her recipe pick: Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken and Veggies. Her endorsement was refreshingly low-effort:
"Really anything in the crockpot for me, but this one is super easy."
Chicken and vegetables in one pot. The founder of a nutrition company is not making anything fancier than you are on a Wednesday.
Blakely Page, MA, RD, LD — Lead Dietitian & Integrator
Blakely is second-in-command and the person who keeps the whole operation moving — she leads the dietitian team, manages the admin teams, and turns the practice's goals into things that actually happen. She also carries her own clients, with over 20 years in functional and holistic nutrition, making root-cause work understandable for women who just want to feel better in their bodies. She's a working mom of two daughters and knows firsthand what it costs to improve your own health while running a household.
Instant Pot Tacos
Her pick: Tacos, in the Instant Pot. She uses this taco meat recipe as her reference — mostly because it works vegetables into the meat itself.
"It's quick and easy and everyone can adjust it to their preferences. I love doing it in the Instant Pot because the meat is much more tender and I think more flavorful."
Two things she does differently from the recipe as written, and both are worth copying:
She uses packaged taco seasoning. A dietitian with two decades of experience uses the packet. Making your own from eight jars is a lovely idea but not realistic for most of us.
She sometimes just adds mushrooms (instead of the veggies in the recipe) which, finely chopped into taco meat, go completely undetected by kids. You are not sneaking one past them so much as removing the visual cue they're reacting to. The colored veggies go in most of the time.
Fixings stay short on purpose: cilantro, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and a can of organic black beans. Five things on the counter, and everyone builds their own.
Lindsay O'Reilly, RD, LD — Program Dietitian
Lindsay has been a Registered Dietitian for over 20 years. Her gift is translation: she takes a complicated health topic and hands it back to you in a form you can act on tonight. She believes that when you understand why something works, you no longer need to be talked into it. Outside of client sessions, she's usually with her family, at her son's baseball game, or deep in a book.
Skillet Enchiladas
Her pick: Skillet enchiladas — all the payoff of enchiladas with none of the rolling, filling, or 40 minutes in the oven. In her words:
"We love these skillet enchiladas. So much flavor, checks all of the boxes for a meal, and quick and easy to put together. Pre-cooked, shredded chicken or rotisserie chicken make that version really easy."
Two versions, depending on what's in the fridge:
The rotisserie chicken shortcut is the part worth stealing. Buying a cooked chicken isn't cheating — it's the same move as the slow cooker, just made at the store instead of at 8am.
Becky Bell, MS, RD, LD — Program Dietitian
Becky brings 16 years of experience and advanced training from the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, which means she goes looking for the reason behind the symptom instead of managing around it. She's also a pastor's wife and a mom of three, so her advice is built for real households, not ideal ones. She's on a mission to push back the noise of the diet industry and help women feel amazing in their bodies without a rulebook. She lives in Colorado, where she hikes, cooks, reads, and works her way through Denver restaurants.
P.F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps, Remade
Her pick: P.F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps, Remade. She serves it with a side of edamame — which is the detail that turns it from a starter into an actual dinner, and a very Becky kind of fix, since protein and fiber are the star of this quick dinner show!
Lisa Mullen — Outreach
Lisa is the first person you hear from. When you fill out a form or send a message wondering whether this could work for you, she and Kayley work together to get you the right questions and support you need to make the BEST decision for yourself.
She cooks the way she works: help you now to set you up for success later. This summer, when her teenage son decided he wanted more protein and wanted to start meal-prepping his own lunches, she built the system that helps the family meet their goals.
Healthy Crockpot Buffalo Chicken
Her pick: Healthy Crockpot Buffalo Chicken. Shred it and it becomes four different dinners — over rice, in a wrap, on a salad, or straight into a bowl with whatever's in the crisper. Feed the family tonight, and the leftovers are the meal prep.
Tara Udinski — Program Manager
Tara is the voice on the other end of your discovery call. She's the one who walks you through what the program actually involves, what your insurance will and won't cover, and whether this is the right fit — including the times the honest answer is not right now. If you've ever braced yourself for a bland, disconnected info call, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the real conversation you get to have with Tara. Not only is she so understanding and supportive, but she's also a nutrition practitioner so she GETS IT. She understands who is a great fit for our dietitians and how our dietitians work so she's everyone's best first step.
She was also the most honest of anyone about her own weeknight cooking:
"I usually just throw random things together and don't use a lot of recipes."
These are exactly the skills we want for our clients too. Recipes are training wheels. You know you're a pro when you can get dinner on the table without a recipe and total confidence it will get you what you need.
Paleo Pumpkin Curry
Her pick: Paleo Pumpkin Curry — the one she does go back to over and over (some things DO need a recipe).
Laura Reardon — Practice Administrator
Laura is the reason things don't fall through the cracks. She keeps all our heads on straight and catches things before anyone else notices they're slipping. Everyone needs a Laura in their life, and we're so glad we have ours.
Her recipe solves a problem most families have and few recipes address: everyone eating at a different time.
Healthy Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken Tacos
Her pick: Healthy Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken Tacos. In her words — "Then we can make it how we want, with tortillas, taco salad, etc. Easy and good for a night when everyone is going to be eating at a different time."
That's the whole strategy: one base, assembled six different ways, staying good in the pot while people trickle in from work and practice.
What We LOVE About This…
Nobody sent in anything complicated.
Every one of these is either hands-off for hours or done in a single pan. Several make more than one meal. Not one of them is the food we'd photograph.
And then there's the tacos. Two of us picked them, separately, without comparing notes — Laura with shredded chicken in a slow cooker, Blakely with beef in an Instant Pot. Different meat, different appliance, same reason. One base on the stove, everything else on the counter, and every person at the table builds the version they'll actually eat.
The problem with feeding a family isn't usually the cooking. It's that four people want four different dinners and need them at different times and… you are one person. A recipe that solves that beats a better recipe that doesn't.
Which is the real pattern here. Eating well on a weeknight isn't always a nutrition problem — it's often a systems problem. The people who eat well consistently aren't the ones with more willpower at dinnertime or fancy meals. They're the ones who arranged things so dinnertime didn't require too much.
Pick one of these. Make it this week. That's the whole assignment.
Want help building a plan that fits your actual life — not an ideal version of it? Book a call with Tara!
