hi, i'm lauren!
a healer and Expert functional registered dietitian nutritionist.

As a young girl, I spent many days in my mother’s organic garden learning about herbs and the role that specific nutrients have in our healing. Being near plants and growing up in my Greek culture instilled in me a deep appreciation of food as medicine and holistic health.

At the age of 17, I left my hometown of San Diego, California to cheer competitively in college. It was during this time that I began to deal with unexplainable hormone irregularities that could not be solved by conventional medicine. I had every test run, saw every specialist and tried every strategy, yet nothing seemed to work for me. I felt so defeated, ignored and frustrated that nobody could help me. Without a normal menstrual cycle and with such terrible GI pains, I felt disconnected to my body and began to feel stress around all of my health behaviors. 

Opportunely, I was just beginning my degree in Dietetics and studying functional medicine, science and nutrition. While in my fellowship, I interned with a functional medicine doctor and dietitian. They ordered advanced diagnostic tests and provided me with answers and direction that finally facilitated healing within my body. After four long years feeling hopeless, these tests and protocol restored a sense of hope and healing in my body.

From this healing experience I became deeply invested in immersing myself more in learning about functional medicine and endocrinology for many years (and still do!). I love that practicing functional medicine embodies so many similarities to my cultural Greek roots. I call this The Athenian Way and it embodies: food as medicine, healing with herbs and nature, restoring homeostasis in the body and mind-body balance.

I began my career working in various high performance settings. My initial dream was to bring food as medicine and functional nutrition to the active population. I completed a post-graduate fellowship and then went on to become the nutrition coordinator for the UCLA athletics department. In this role I was involved in department research with the UCLA medical center, clinical nutrition counseling, supplement compliance and performance nutrition education. I then took a position with Texas Tech Football to start a functional nutrition program. As I continued to learn and see more and more individuals over the years I couldn't help but see that in order to solve these complex health imbalances, I needed to practice true functional medicine nutrition.  I left high performance and began consulting with an internal medicine office with patients ages 45 - 85 dealing with everything from heart disease, diabetes, kidney stones, menopause to cancer. What I learned from this work was that all individuals want to perform at a high level and that functional nutrition was the answer to help them get there. I saw countless patients reverse health conditions, get off lifelong medications and restore vitality so that they could show up for the things that mattered most to them in life. I knew I had to share this work with more and more people. I took all of the best practices I learned from seeing what and how people heal and founded Functional Fueling.

My hope is that Functional Fueling may feel like a soft place to land and a safe space to heal where you know you are in the best hands. That every detail of your health has been thought after and that your individual needs, wants, dreams and visions are always supported.

Meet the Founder