About Erica

Welcome to the Middle! I’m Erica Landas, MS, RDN LDN, which is fancy talk for registered dietitian nutritionist and a mom of four (2009, 2011, 2015, 2018). There are so many fads and trends surrounding nutrition these days, It can be overwhelming to sort through all of the information. System overload, anyone? Come join me as I help you increase your happiness by improving your relationship with food, with money, and with your stuff.

How I got into this field

First off, this was not a career I had planned on going into or even knew about when I was in school. I originally thought I would be a doctor following in my dad’s footsteps. I started out studying biology and science in college and then for reasons that only God knows, I decided to switch and study economics and business. So I graduated from St. Thomas in Minnesota with a degree in Economics and worked for almost 10 years in the accounting and finance industry completing a variety of analysis with healthcare, numbers and spreadsheets. Some of the hours were long, which was fine until I was married (2007) and became pregnant with our first child (2009). From a young age, I knew I wanted to be available to stay at home with my future kids but I wasn’t sure what that looked like from a career perspective. My goal was a career with flexibility as I started having a family. At the same time once I had my first child, I was super, super into figuring out the best ways to feed kids to meet their nutritional needs and to feed their brain.

Around this time, I started researching different blogs and websites for information about how to feed kids. I noticed a lot of them were registered dietitian nutritionists, so I’d peek at their credentials and figure how what kind of path they took to get to these fields. Around that time, I also remembered when I was in college on the rowing team a nutritionist had come to speak to us, but For reasons only God knows, it didn’t click yet. He was just planting the seed. After further research, I figured out I need to go back to school to earn a Masters’ Degree in Nutrition Science and then do an internship, and then study for and pass an exam to become certified to practice nutrition.

So that’s what I did, I talked to my husband, and we made a plan where I:

-completed prerequisites,

-took the Graduate Record Examination (GRE),

-applied to graduate nutrition programs,

-completed graduate school,

-completed internships, and

-passed the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Exam (2015).

From start to finish the process took about 4 years. Shortly after my firstborn turned one, I started prerequisites and finished when he started kindergarten.

What I do now

Now as a Private Practice Dietitian Nutritionist who blogs, I combine my interests of nutrition, business, and writing.

I have a Private Practice where work with clients, and get to talk about nutrition. I set my own schedule. Part of this includes having a website and a blog where I share information about nutrition. I like it because of the flexibility, I can determine when I write.

Since I still have young kids, and I feel God is calling me to be at home with them now. As they get older and spend more time at school, then I can scale up my business hours.

Why I enjoy it

Everyone eats. Nutrition will always be a part of our world. There are always new things to learn and to teach others. It makes me excited to be a part of an industry that has a direct impact on people’s daily lives.

My three favorite things about being a dietitian:

Studying science – as someone who loves to learn, I am continually fascinated by the human body. Even though humans are relatively similar, and have pretty much the same parts; we digest and process our nutrients and biology, studying the body, chemistry to understand molecules and how foods are made and how our body uses them

Communicating – written and verbal. We weren’t meant to live on an island and helping others is all about connecting with them. Without writing or talking, it makes it tricky to help. As I dietitian, I get to take complex nutrition studies and break them down into manageable steps for others so they are easier to understand.

Being curious – the human body is so fascinating and there are many mysteries we just don’t know. So much of it is trial and error as each person is slightly different from the next.

A few random things about me (in no particular order):

–Hall and Oates is my all time favorite duo and band and I’ve seen them at least a dozen times with my husband. In fact, one of our first dates was a Hall and Oates concert. Neil Diamond is a close second.

-I love traveling yet have only been to countries with English as the primary language (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Greece, South Africa).

–Spreadsheets are my favorite! Anything that can be tracked, count me in. (My undergrad degree is in Economics, maybe that’s where the love started?)

–I do not prefer bacon. (We try to stay away from using the word “hate” on in our house which explains the use of the phrase, “do not prefer.”) This one continues to stump my kids. It’s such a strong smell to me and it seems to linger anytime you cook it in the house. The only time I’ve craved it was during my three pregnancies with the boys.

-My favorite food during my freshman year of high school was raw chocolate chip cookie dough. Oh how times have changed! I still love to eat cookie dough, however now I made an edible form without raw flour to protect myself from E. coli.

-My favorite colors are kelly green and navy blue, which you will find splashed around on this website and in my home.

-I’m the second oldest child from a family of six kids.

-I grew up in Iowa.

-I love planners. Right now I use the High Performance Planner, but have previously used the Full Focus Planner, Franklin Covey, MyAgenda, MomAgenda, the Passion Planner and a variety of others.