James Marquez

James Marquez says, “My one true love on this Earth that will never leave me—Yosemite!” BodySpace member “0Zero0” has a love for Yosemite and the outdoors, which is a product of family tradition of going to the national park for hikes and camping. He remembers as a teen finally getting to go with the grown-ups all the way to Half Dome, which at some 4,700 feet was a century ago called “perfectly inaccessible.”

Now 26, James continues to wander Yosemite. He gets out among the Sierra Nevadas; has hiked San Gorgonio, the highest peak in Southern California at about 11,000 feet; and is planning to do Mount Whitney, the highest summit in the continental United States at more than 14,000 feet. He’s also planning to hike the 211 miles of the John Muir trail to experience the adventures he reads about in the writings of John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, from the late 1800s.

In high school, James was the skinniest kid in the weight room at just over 6’ and 135 pounds. Joining the Air Force at 18, he eventually found himself in Diego Garcia, where his buddies kept nagging him to work out despite his embarrassment about being so skinny. He kept going at it, but with the new idea that he needed to eat everything in sight to gain some weight. “Too many carbs” took him from skinny to fat, says James. At 212 pounds he started looking to magazines like IRON MAN for information. He started doing cardio and worked on eating right, and eventually he saw a miracle of nature, his abs!

Still serving in the United States Air Force Reserve as an aircraft maintenance scheduler, he continues to train and also enjoys swimming. At 178 pounds James is no longer embarrassed—he’s looking good! He calls BodySpace at BodyBuilding.com his new home. It’s “fun meeting and talking to people who are all interested in health and fitness.”

Visit James on his BodySpace page and keep up with his adventures.

—Ian Sitren

Editor’s note: For more BodySpace bodies and info, visit Bodybuilding.com.