John Rhode continues to battle his way toward being The Biggest Loser, even though he only lost 10 pounds last week.

But that 10 pounds still puts him ahead of his opponents for overall weight loss since season 12 began in September.

Rhode started out weighing 445 pounds, and is down to 319 pounds this week. At Tuesday's weigh-in, there was a concerned look on his face that his mother spotted at once.

"Last night (Tuesday) was a heart stopper for me," Hazel Rhode said Wednesday. "John looked so worried, but he kept it together."

John Rhode grew up in the Tri-Cities and now lives in Arizona. His mother still lives in Kennewick and hasn't missed an episode of the show.

Fortunately, that worried look his mother saw didn't last long, Rhode said in a telephone interview Thursday.

"I was a little worried at the weigh-in because I was used to being safe in the weight loss category," he said. "I wanted to have dropped more than that."

But even though he lost the least amount of weight among his red-shirted teammates, he still lost more than the blue team did as a whole, he added.

The secret to losing weight and maintaining that loss is how you eat, Rhode said. He loves to cook, so learning to cook healthy wasn't hard for him.

It's a matter of eliminating carbohydrates as long as people understand what happens when they start to eat carbs again, Rhode said. People need to be smart about how much they start consuming again once the weight-loss goal is reached, he said.

"For example, instead of cooking fried chicken cook an organic chicken breast, and always lean meat," Rhode said.

He also advised his teammate Bonnie that if she eliminated carbohydrates, she would lose weight, and she did at this week's weigh-in.

Rhode's determination to keep his nose to the grindstone on The Biggest Loser makes his momma proud.

"John always works hard and I continue to marvel at his ability to focus and be as strong as he can be," she said.

Rhode holds the record for most weight lost (101 pounds) in the first six weeks in the program's history. The prior record was 100 pounds in the same amount of time.

The Herald is checking in with Rhode weekly for an update until the show's finale Dec. 10.