Telford couple’s passion for helping people creates new business

Sometimes the answer to a problem is so simple you cannot believe somebody didn’t already figure it out.

That was certainly the case when Sarita Adams was trying to help local people improve their quality of life - and extend their lifespan - by tackling obesity as part of an NHS weight management programme.

Telford-based Sarita says: “Some of the people coming to the clinics had been battling their weight for decades, trying one diet regime after another. It was so upsetting to see how desperate they were to change but how difficult they found it.

“They would say that they had eaten less fattening food, or eaten more fibre or vegetables. But there was no easy and accurate way for them to quantify ‘less’ or ‘more’.

“I kept saying there must be a way to help them measure the quantity and type of food they were eating. I searched in the UK and America for a visual aid to help them, but nothing actually did that. In the end, my husband Jon suggested we do it ourselves and the Adams Portion Pot is the result.”

The couple’s simple but effective diet tool is a measuring beaker that helps people to keep within recommended daily calorie limits, but also ensures they eat the correct proportions of five nutrient groups needed to ensure healthy sustained weight loss and control.

Key to their goal was that the Adams Portion Pot be affordable to those on low incomes – a single pot from www.adamsportionpot.com costs just £11 and the one-off purchase gives a lifetime membership to the Adams online weight management support programme.

“We didn’t want people to become reliant on it,” explains Sarita. “I have no interest in making people stay on a diet for life - there is just too much to do, living. The pot is to help you visualise the right amounts of food. Once you have used the pot to measure a portion of pasta, you won’t need the pot because you will know what is a true portion of pasta.”

With 60% of men, 50% of women and 25% of children predicted to be obese by 2050, weight management has never been more important to the future health and prosperity of the country. NHS costs attributable to obesity are projected to rise to £10billion per year, and the wider costs to society and business are estimated to reach almost £50billion per year.1

It was these shocking statistics, along with their passion for helping people, that spurred Jon and Sarita to use their creative problem solving skills and many years of health service, charity and business experience to develop the Adams Portion Pot and its supporting website.

Jon, a former mental health commissioner for Telford, now works full-time on the fledgling Portion Pot business while Sarita helps hospital trusts around the UK to design new services.

The Portion Pot was initially used by nurses delivering weight management programmes with patients in GP practices. At that time Sarita was training nurses in behaviour changing techniques, speaking at conferences, and winning a best practice award from Diabetes UK.

A study, involving over 150 people trying to lose weight in six West Midlands GP practices found that people using the Adams Portion Pot lost, on average, twice as much weight over a three-month period as those who only received diet and exercise advice.

Jane De-Ville Almond, an independent nurse who specialises in obesity management, was involved in the study and said: “The Adams Portion Pot is brilliant for people who confess to having tried it all. It’s often not what people eat, but how much they eat, and this fantastic educational tool helps people understand where they may be going wrong.”

The popularity and proven success of the pot within a clinical setting led Jon and Sarita to develop the programme for use by the public, and it was launched on the internet earlier this year.

Sarita adds: “This really is a DIY company; Jon and I do everything – packing boxes, posting orders, looking after the website, the technical stuff, the accounts, although we would like to expand, and possibly employ people in the future.”

The website, designed and managed by Jon Adams, includes a number of self-assessment toolkits to help people identify their eating issues to help re-think their relationship with food, while they re-educate themselves about the quantities they eat.

Jon adds: “Over the years I have encountered many, many people with eating disorders, which has given me a rare insight into body image and the impact these issues can have. It can be very emotional receiving emails from people saying how the pot has worked for them. People often do need help to enjoy food and eat what is good for them.”

CASE STUDY

Deborah* is a 30-year-old business development manager, living on the Shropshire-Mid Wales border. After the birth of her second child she struggled to lose her ‘baby weight’ and turned to the Adams Portion Pot after meeting Sarita Adams.

“I had tried other slimming programmes before,” said Deborah. “But I found I was always counting calories or points with them, rather than thinking about what I was actually eating.

“The Portion Pot gave me a better focus on the right proportion of food groups. Now I know how to recognise correct portion sizes I don’t need the pot – except I like it for measuring rice – but it definitely helped me and my husband to adjust our diet and eat healthier.

“Eating the right kind of foods in the right proportions gave us more energy and just made us feel better. You are reducing the amount of food you normally eat – because if we all ate the right amount in the first place nobody would be overweight – but the Portion Pot lets you eat what you want in controlled amounts.

“I lost around 10lbs in six months. It was gradual because I wasn’t doing any exercise. But keeping to the portion control that the Portion Pot taught me has allowed me to keep the weight off, even when faced with challenges like Christmas.”

The Adams Portion Pot is available by mail order from www.adamsportionpot.com

*Deborah’s identity has been changed to protect her privacy