How I quit the Premier League to run a health non-profit in France

My husband Tom, now 76, and I moved to France with our two young daughters in 2003, seeking a more relaxed lifestyle.

Tom had been offered early retirement from his job as managing director of a regional newspaper, and I was ready for a change.

I had been working as sales manager for Norwich City Football Club. They were in the newly formed Premier League and everything had gone into overdrive. My role was selling corporate hospitality (tickets and boxes) and sponsorships – basically everything bar the players themselves.

With the new Premier League, the hours ramped up: matches moved from Saturdays at 15:00 to bank holidays, Sundays and weekday evenings.

The hours were not conducive to raising young children and I knew I needed to make a change. While I loved the job, it was the right time – although I regret not taking the chance to work with [English chef and Norwich City FC fan] Delia Smith when she became involved with the club.

Settling into French life

In 2004, shortly after moving to the Tarn, our third daughter was born. As soon as I was back on my feet, I knew I needed to immerse myself in French life.

I wanted to be fully part of my children’s lives and, while they were fluent within six months, I knew it would take longer for me. I joined the local parent-teacher association and our village’s aerobics club, took weekly French lessons and got as involved as I could.

With Tom’s pension, I did not have the pressure to seek out work straightaway and my focus was firmly on family.

A cancer diagnosis prompts a new direction

In 2017, I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer after discovering that a benign cyst had turned cancerous.

It came after a difficult period: my mother had died of a heart attack without warning in 2016, and I had been trying to help care for my father in the UK.

The experience had depleted me and I knew my health was at rock bottom, even before the cancer had taken hold. I was treated at Oncopole in Toulouse, but also wanted to do everything I could to support my body as it healed and give myself the best chance of recovering well.

If you Google cancer – or anything to do with health, nutrition and exercise – millions of results come up.Some sites offer reputable, evidence-based advice. Others are very anecdotal and not always backed up by science.

But everything is presented in such a professional way that it can be a struggle to sort useful advice from misleading information.

Eventually, I found some great resources and, alongside having chemotherapy and other treatment at the hospital, I improved my diet, switching to plant-based and organic foods, and began exercising more to get my body as fit and well as possible.

Eleven weeks after treatment started, my scans were clear and I felt incredibly grateful.

Setting up Double-zero

Going through cancer changed me, and I began to realise how difficult it was for people to separate fact from fiction.

I took online courses in wellbeing and nutrition through Yale and Stanford universities in 2019 and started a loi 1901 association called Double-zero. The idea is to help people who want to live a healthy life for as long as possible – with double-zero representing living to 100.

This is a non-profit organisation providing free links and resources to reputable, trained experts and reliable health advice. It cuts through the internet noise that appears when you are looking for health information and guides users towards useful research and care.

I have since become a global partner with another non-profit organisation in the US and also partner with the UK integrative cancer charity Yes to Life.

Working from home, I still miss chats in the office from time to time, but I have stayed in touch with many friends from work.

My days are always varied: I spend time updating the website, reaching out to organisations, speaking to doctors and health professionals, and reading research.

As a morning person, this means getting up at 06:30 and sometimes working late – especially when working with people in Florida, which is six hours behind.

However, as the charity’s founder, I can also take time out when I need it and set my own hours, which feels great.

I am not a qualified practitioner, but point others towards trusted resources. It is a way of paying it forward which makes me feel fulfilled.