Lauren Embree: A Healthier
Approach to Life and Tennis

Grueling hours, meticulous preparation, unwavering discipline, countless reps, rigorous schedules, health management, and painstaking mental battles. These are just some of the things players regularly subject themselves to in order to achieve a level of greatness in tennis. Some carve out success, others, inevitably, fall short. It’s a sport, after all, where much is earned and little is given. What determines the difference between the two paths isn’t always clear, but for one particular competitor who reached great plateaus in the sport, and now finds herself on a new trail in life, the secret to a payoff for hard work is simple yet profound: success is the byproduct of a labor of love. Her journey in tennis, and now functional medicine, details a healthier approach to sports and life. Enter Lauren Embree. 

Once a two-time NCAA Champion, professional tennis player, and a Southern California collegiate coach, Lauren Embree is the founding CEO of Embree Wellness, a holistic health and nutrition consultancy. Embree’s journey with holistic medicine began when her own battles with health led her to a functional medicine practitioner in her early twenties. This life-changing help she received inspired her to want to do the same for others. She dove into courses, schooling, and certifications on holistic care to become the expert that she is today, applying the same marriage of diligence and passion that she once did to her tennis career. 

Embree, a self-described social butterfly in her younger years and multi-sport athlete, grew up in the small town of Marco Island, Florida. At an early age, tennis was integral to her lifestyle.

“My dad played [tennis] his whole life so he really got our family into it…it was just us going out daily and practicing on the local courts. I really fell in love with it at an early age…My parents did a great job of balancing a normal/social life but also making sure I practice every day and my dad was a great example and leader of this…”

With her family’s support and the guidance of her father, Keith Embree, that love and commitment paved the pathway for early success in the juniors, where she quickly found her footing. But for Lauren and her team, it was more about the journey than the outcome. 

“My dad always just wanted me to try my hardest and give my best effort, they never really cared about the outcome. This approach, I believe, helped me take pressure off results and really just love the game,” she explains, adding that the balance of a regular public school life and high level competitive tennis that her parents encouraged her to maintain helped her retain her love of the game.

Embree’s career path eventually took her to the highest levels of the sport. She competed in the Junior edition of the US Open and Australian Open, made a French Open Main Draw appearance at just eighteen, and reached career high WTA rankings inside the top 250 in both Singles and Doubles.

At the collegiate level, she built one of the most decorated careers in the history of University of Florida athletics. During her time with the Gators, Embree helped lead the program to back-to-back NCAA Championships in 2011 and 2012, clinching the championship point in both finals. She reached the number one ranking in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) in Singles, and achieved a collegiate Grand Slam by winning every major individual ITA title. Along the way, she earned the ITA National Rookie of the Year award in 2010, set or broke numerous match win records for the Gators, received multiple All American and All Team honors, and cemented her status as one of the program’s all time standouts. 

Embree sums up her time playing collegiate tennis as one of the best experiences of her life, and that should come as no surprise based on her resume alone. But when she reflects on that time, it isn’t the titles or accolades she speaks to, but the environment she was a part of. 

“I had great teammates to look up to, amazing coaches who knew how to build the right culture, and a university who genuinely cared about every sport,” she relates, highlighting a selfless mindset the team shared, a willingness to show up for one another, and the confidence they had in each other that relieved the “need” to win. Added the two-time National Champion, “Something about having that support system and looking over at your teammates gives you that extra 1% push to the finish line, and I think that helped me a ton over my four year success at Florida.” 

With an experience like that, it was only fitting then that Lauren would make her way back to the collegiate landscape in 2016. Having set up her home in Los Angeles, California during her post-college stint in the pros, Embree came across a coaching position at Pepperdine University. After a little healthy persistence (she would playfully tell you she “harassed” then-Head Coach Per Nilsson, Lauren settled into the next phase of her tennis career. In two years together, they coached a Pepperdine team that featured Southern California’s Ashley Lahey and Jessica Failla as well as other eventual pros including Mayar Sherif and Luisa Stefani to a pair of successful seasons. 

Recalling that experience with Coach Nilsson, it was once again the environment they fostered that she remembers most fondly.

“I feel so fortunate my first job was learning from him. Not only did we have the best time working together, but our teams and [the] culture he built there made it that much more enjoyable as well.” 

After Pepperdine, Embree’s career came full circle when she returned to Gainesville to coach at her alma mater, where she once cemented her legacy. But the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and a significant personal loss led her to reevaluate her path. While living in Florida during that time, she contemplated the next chapter of her career and began to seriously consider launching her own business, a vision she had carried for years but had hesitated to pursue.  

That is, until the loss of her beloved father, Keith.

 “When my dad passed in 2023, it really changed my whole perspective on life and gave me a different outlook on not waiting for things to happen because you never know how much time you have. This kind of sparked my interest in moving out of Florida, giving up [my] collegiate coaching career and diving head first into nutrition.”

With the philosophies her dad instilled in her, giving her both guidance and encouragement, she knew the only way to approach her new profession was with absolute investment, and for Lauren, that came back to her mission at hand.

“I love helping people and individuals feel better and live a healthier lifestyle through changing some of their daily habits, incorporating movement, and really giving them hope and encouragement along with accountability that they can too, feel the best and have great energy every single day.”

She now does that through her consultancy, Embree Wellness, where she offers everything from nutritional guidance, weight management, gut health support, and athletic fuel timing. “It is a big wide net of different services I provide, but most dial back to lifestyle and food protocols believing that food equals medicine,” she reflects of her business, which currently reaches over seven thousand followers on social media with the help of her team. With her reach, Embree hopes to enlighten anyone interested in the importance of nutrition and functional medicine, understanding all too well that athletes, and especially young athletes, are not always aware of the importance of it. 

For Lauren, establishing good habits and learning the value of nutrition early is as much about helping athletes with their present day fitness as it is about improving quality of life in the future. Once a player who was driven by a healthy support system, she now gives back to others in her advocacy for a healthy lifestyle. As she would brilliantly sum it up, “Remember, If you put bad gas in a Lamborghini it won’t operate as well,” elaborating, “We only have one body, we rely on it to do so many things every single day, it only makes sense that what you put in your body makes a difference in how it runs for you every single day.” 

Embree imparts this knowledge on to clients, in part, by drawing on her own life experiences as an elite tennis player, an athlete, and as a woman  Reflecting on her health issues in college, which included things like injuries, gut health, and excessive soreness, Embree challenges the way a lot of athletes think when she stresses, “Turns out, you CANNOT out-exercise a bad diet.” She goes on to explain some of the dietary changes she made that made a substantial difference in her own life, including the almost complete removal of gluten and dairy from her diet. It’s then that she speaks out about another misconception that a lot of athletes accept as truth: “If individuals knew that feeling ‘tired’ or having bad ‘PMS’ or getting injured did not have to be the norm, they might change some of their habits.” And to help athletes understand this, she calls on leadership in sports, including coaches and academies to help educate youth on the importance of adopting healthy habits. 

And for Lauren, the importance of guiding youth is more near and dear to her heart than ever, as she now carries her most important title of all: that of mom. Reflecting on her own upbringing filled with “positivity, loyalty, and encouragement,” the new mom wishes to provide the same nucleus for her newborn daughter, Pearl: “More than any accomplishment, I hope she feels the strength of that foundation — knowing that family shows up for each other, supports each other through hard seasons, and celebrates each other fully. That love and loyalty are things I hope she carries with her throughout her entire life.”

And just as she was once taught the value of marrying positivity and love with a great work ethic towards life goals, she hopes to pass these life lessons on to her little one. “My parents really taught me through their actions that…There really is no substitute for consistent work.  My tennis upbringing was probably the greatest example of learning that discipline over time compounds into something meaningful.” 

It’s through this insight as a new mother that Embree illuminates one of her most valuable principles for those wishing to live a healthier lifestyle: “It’s really about balance and awareness more than perfection.” The foundation of balance, love, discipline and commitment that were pillars in Lauren’s upbringing as a person and athlete are once again reflected in Lauren the professional, the instructor, the mentor, and new mother. Whether for her daughter or her clients, it is her objective for wellness to feel “supportive and sustainable” rather than “overwhelming.” And, much like her dad was exemplary for her growing up, she hopes to lead by example for her daughter, Pearl. “I want her to see that her parents both showed up for her fully. That commitment, discipline, and passion aren’t about perfection, but about caring deeply and giving your best” she expresses. She then adds a final nugget of wisdom that encapsulates her drive to give back to others and explains so much of her formula for success throughout her years in tennis, health, and life: “Just as much as achievement, the way you impact others—clients, athletes, people in your community—is part of your legacy too.”