Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Kate Fuller.
Hi Mary Kate, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My path into functional nutrition was not completely linear, but looking back, there has always been a common thread: I have been fascinated by people, by health, and by understanding why we think, feel, and function the way we do.
I initially studied psychology at Temple University because I was deeply interested in human behavior, stress, emotional health, and the relationship between our experiences and our overall well-being. After earning my bachelor’s degree, I worked in social services with young women ages 13–20.
That experience became an important turning point for me.
I began seeing very clearly that physical and emotional health could not be separated as neatly as we sometimes try to separate them. Nutrition, sleep, stress, relationships, trauma, environment, and daily habits all influenced how someone felt, functioned, and responded to the challenges in their life.
I became especially interested in the connection between nourishment and energy, concentration, mood, emotional regulation, motivation, and cognitive function. At the same time, I was seeing how chronic stress and difficult life experiences could affect sleep, digestion, appetite, inflammation, energy, and physical health.
It made me want to understand the body much more deeply.
During that period, I also experienced illness and loss within my own circle of family and friends. Watching people I cared about navigate increasingly complex health problems made me ask questions that have stayed with me throughout my career: Why does disease develop? What happens in the years before a diagnosis? And how much opportunity do we have to support the body earlier?
Those questions led me to study integrative nutrition and holistic health through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Initially, I wanted additional tools for the population I was already serving, but eventually I began working with nutrition clients independently.
As my practice grew, people began coming to me with increasingly complex concerns – digestive problems, fatigue, hormonal issues, metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, food sensitivities, nutrient deficiencies, and chronic symptoms that did not fit neatly into one category.
I realized I wanted a much deeper clinical education.
I returned to graduate school and earned my master’s degree in functional nutrition and integrative health from Maryland University of Integrative Health. That education allowed me to bring together the areas that had interested me for years: nutrition science, physiology, biochemistry, gastrointestinal health, metabolism, psychology, lifestyle medicine, and individualized care.
It also solidified the philosophy that guides my work today.
Rather than asking only, “How do we make this symptom go away?” I want to understand, “Why might the body be producing this symptom in the first place?”
I believe symptoms are information – our body’s way of communicating to us that it needs support. Fatigue, digestive problems, brain fog, weight changes, hormonal shifts, poor sleep, inflammation, or changes in mood may appear unrelated, but often they are pieces of a much larger physiological story.
Food is foundational to my work, but functional nutrition extends far beyond food. We have to consider digestion and absorption, nutrient status, sleep, stress, blood sugar, movement, medications, hormones, genetics, environment, and a person’s broader life circumstances.
Two people can walk through the door with the exact same symptom and need completely different plans.
After years of working in integrative health and holistic wellness, I opened Purely Rooted Nutrition & Wellness in December 2020 with the goal of creating the kind of practice I believed people were looking for: highly individualized, deeply educational, and focused on understanding the underlying contributors to symptoms rather than addressing each concern in isolation.
Today, as a Licensed Functional Nutritionist, one of the most important things I bring to my work is the combination of clinical education and truly listening.
People often arrive overwhelmed by conflicting nutrition information. They have been told to eat one way, then another; eliminate this, add that, count everything, restrict something else. Many begin to believe they have somehow failed.
Very often, they have not failed at all. They simply have never had a plan designed around their physiology, history, lifestyle, and needs.
That individuality is at the heart of what I do.
My career began with an interest in the mind and human behavior, evolved into a fascination with physiology and nutrition, and ultimately brought those worlds back together.
Today, I have the privilege of helping people connect the dots in their own health story, understand their bodies more clearly, and become active participants in their health.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It certainly has not been a completely smooth road, but I think that is true of most meaningful careers.
One of my earliest professional challenges was having the courage to change direction.
I had already earned a degree in psychology and established myself in social services when I realized I was being pulled toward nutrition and a more integrative model of health. It would have been easier to stay on the path I had already chosen, but I knew I wanted a deeper understanding of the physical side of health.
That meant additional training, graduate school, starting over in some ways, and trusting that the different pieces of my education and following my intuition would eventually fit together.
Starting Purely Rooted brought an entirely different learning curve. I opened the practice in December 2020, so I was building a healthcare business during a particularly unusual time.
Like many entrepreneurs, I quickly discovered that owning a practice meant becoming much more than a practitioner. I had to learn marketing, operations, technology, insurance, finances, scheduling, program development, client communication, and business strategy while continuing to provide individualized care.
There have certainly been moments of self-doubt.
Another challenge is practicing in a field where nutrition information is incredibly noisy.
People are constantly exposed to contradictory messages – low-fat, low-carb, plant-based, carnivore, fasting, detoxes, supplements, calorie counting, food fear. By the time many clients reach me, they have tried so many things that they no longer trust themselves around food.
Helping someone move away from the idea that there is one universally “perfect” diet is an important part of my work.
Entrepreneurship has also taught me about building healthy boundaries for myself as well.
I genuinely love what I do, and it would be very easy to spend every waking hour researching, creating programs, thinking about clients, and building the practice. Learning to care deeply about my work without allowing it to occupy every part of my life has been an important part of my own growth.
The challenges have ultimately made me a better practitioner and a stronger business owner.
They have taught me to remain curious, to keep refining my craft, to trust the process, and to remember that the most meaningful health care often begins with listening carefully enough to understand the full story.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Purely Rooted Nutrition & Wellness is a functional and integrative nutrition practice built around the belief that the body is interconnected and that symptoms often provide important information about what may need support.
We work with people experiencing concerns such as:
Digestive dysfunction
Fatigue and low energy
Hormonal concerns
Thyroid issues
Metabolic and blood-sugar challenges
Inflammation
Nutrient deficiencies
Brain fog
Sleep difficulties
Food sensitivities
Weight concerns
The persistent feeling that something is “off,” even when basic testing appears normal
Rather than looking at one symptom in isolation, we look at the whole person.
That includes health history, nutrition, digestion, sleep, stress, medications, movement, lifestyle, nutrient status, emotional well-being, and, when appropriate, functional laboratory testing.
From there, we develop an individualized nutrition and lifestyle strategy based on the patterns we see.
Food is always foundational.
I believe deeply in food as medicine, but I also believe nutrition should not feel like punishment.
I do not want people living in fear of food, perpetually dieting, or feeling guilty because they ate something that was not “perfect.”
True nourishment should be an act of self-respect and self-love, not restriction, shame, deprivation, or guilt.
One of the things that distinguishes Purely Rooted is the amount of time we spend connecting the dots.
Someone may come in because they are exhausted, but fatigue can have many contributors. Someone else may be struggling with weight loss, but the solution is not always simply eating less.
What is the root cause – what is holding them back from success?
We may need to explore:
Blood sugar regulation
Digestive function and absorption
Nutrient status
Sleep
Stress
Hormones
Inflammation
Muscle mass and movement
Gut microbiome health
Meal timing
Overall energy intake
Two people can have the same symptom and need completely different approaches.
Functional testing can also be an important tool in the practice. Depending on the individual, we may look more deeply at blood chemistry, nutrient status, digestive function, the gut microbiome, hormones, or other physiological patterns.
Testing is not the entire picture, but when used appropriately, it can help us make a nutrition, lifestyle, and supplement plan much more precise.
Another important part of our philosophy is that physical health does not exist separately from the rest of a person’s life.
Stress, grief, relationships, workload, sleep deprivation, and emotional strain all matter.
You cannot always nourish your way out of a life that is chronically exhausting your nervous system.
Sometimes healing requires changing food. Sometimes it requires getting more sleep, moving more, setting boundaries, reducing stress, or making room for recovery.
Education is also central to everything we do.
I do not want clients leaving my office with a list of instructions they do not understand. I want them to understand why we are making changes, what we are looking for, and how nutrition and lifestyle may be influencing their physiology.
Ultimately, I want people to become less dependent on rules and more confident in understanding their own bodies.
I am also very proud that Purely Rooted continues to grow beyond individual counseling. We provide functional testing, structured nutrition programs, weight-management support, educational programs, community presentations, and resources around areas such as digestion, hormones, blood sugar, stress, energy, and metabolic health.
Brand-wise, I am perhaps most proud that Purely Rooted has stayed true to the intention behind its name.
I never wanted to build a practice around fads, extreme diets, quick fixes, or selling people as many supplements as possible.
Purely Rooted means getting back to the roots: nourishment, real food, physiology, nature, education, and understanding the deeper reasons someone may not feel well.
Ultimately, I want people to know that they do not have to wait for their health to become a crisis before they begin paying attention to their bodies.
And they do not have to accept feeling poorly simply because it has become familiar.
Sometimes the first step is simply having someone willing to listen closely enough to help make sense of the bigger picture.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, I was curious, independent, creative, and very observant.
I was always interested in understanding how things worked and why people thought or behaved the way they did. Science came naturally to me because I loved that every answer seemed to lead to another question.
I was also very connected to nature. I loved being outside, spending time near the ocean, noticing plants and wildlife, looking at the stars, and simply having space to think.
Creativity was another big part of my personality. I enjoyed writing, music, poetry, and anything that allowed me to explore ideas or express myself.
I was active as well. I danced, played softball, and tended to take on leadership or organizational roles. I liked bringing pieces together, making plans, and figuring out how things could work more effectively.
Independence was important to me, but so was family. Family has always remained one of the central priorities in my life.
Probably the trait that has followed me most strongly into adulthood is curiosity.
I have never been particularly comfortable accepting, “That is just the way it is,” without asking another question.
If something does not make sense to me, I want to understand why.
Looking back, that quality explains quite a bit about the career I eventually chose.
Functional nutrition requires curiosity. It requires looking at patterns, asking why, considering how different systems interact, and recognizing that the obvious answer is not always the complete answer.
The combination of science, psychology, creativity, nature, independence, and curiosity that interested me when I was younger ultimately found a home in the work I do today.
Pricing:
- Insurance: Purely Rooted accepts many major insurance plans, including Aetna, Highmark BCBS, Capital Blue Cross, Personal Choice, Keystone, UPMC, and UnitedHealthcare. Coverage and patient responsibility vary by individual plan.
- Self-Pay Visits: Initial consultation $250; test-results consultation $175; follow-up session $150.
- Functional Testing: Pricing varies by test. Examples include food sensitivity/allergy testing around $200, GI microbiome testing around $400, and hormone testing around $350.
- Specialty Testing Available: Additional functional testing may include gut health, hormones, mold, toxins, Lyme, nutrient status, and other individualized areas based on client needs.
- Programs: Comprehensive functional nutrition programs are available for approximately $1,400–$1,700 and includes functional testing plus about three months of nutrition support, offering a more cost-effective option for self-pay clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.purelyrootednutrition.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purelyrootednutrition/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PurelyRootedNutrition
