"For years I kept saying 'I can't.' I realized while doing CrossFit that I was actually saying 'I won't.' There's nothing I won't do now."
Paramedic Sean Bulgur came home after a 48-hour shift haggard and numb. He opened a beer, fell into his molded computer chair, clicked on his Mac and traded sleeping for gaming … again.
In the months after his divorce in 2007, Bulgur receded from reality.
“It was nothing for me to put down a case of beer in a night,” he says. “I played ‘Warhammer Online’ more than I was actually at work.”
Bulgur’s sister, Brigid says he completely closed himself off. “It was like the life had been sucked out of him,” she recalls. “He closed out all his friends and family, he started putting on weight and lost his sense of humor.”
After mounting debt forced him to move into his parents’ house, Bulgur started to buckle. “I had to move back into my parents’ house at 30 years old,” he says. “My mom thought it would be nice to clean my room for me — which at 30 years old was the most demeaning thing that can happen.”
A friend, and owner of Ludington CrossFit, Jacob Seng, stepped in to help. Seng offered an on-ramp to something different … CrossFit.
Although the intense workout sounded mentally exhausting, Bulgur knew it was what he needed. The transition wasn’t easy. After months on the couch, the intro workouts at Ludington CrossFit felt like torture sessions.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Sean recalls. “I thought there was no way in hell I was walking back into that building, but by 10 the next morning I knew it was exactly the thing I needed.”
Next, he pulled the plug on his post-divorce bad habits and started some new, good ones.
“Once I made up my mind that I was going to do CrossFit, I took the huge step of canceling cable and Internet at my house, so I no longer had that to distract me,” he says. “I started reading more and made the conscious effort to get out of my house. I started going to the coffee shop and finding more social hobbies and activities.”
“(CrossFit) became a huge part of those changed habits,” he says. “It was a brutal initial month, but I kept sticking with it because I was seeing the weight come off and I felt better than I had in years.”
Twelve weeks after his first workout, Bulgur was changed in more ways than he expected. By forgoing television, video games, soda and fast food, and adding CrossFit, he lost 12 pounds and learned the basic CrossFit movements well enough to graduate from the on-ramp program.
He even faced down a fear.
“As a short guy carrying some extra weight, box jumps intimidated me the most,” Bulgur explains. “Once I got the 20-inch box, I decided to try the 24-inch. I kept working, and I’ll never forget when I got the 30-inch. The coaches turned around, I screamed, ‘I just did that, I just made it on top of the 30-inch box!’”
Now, eight months in, he says he feels like a new man. “It’s completely changed every area of my life,” he says. “Now I expect the best out of myself. I don’t know where I’m going, but it feels like there’s no limit anymore.”
Brigid says she has noticed the changes in her brother, as well.
“He’s a lot more confident and outgoing,” she says. “He’s seeking adventure and ways to grow and to better himself. He has energy and life that he didn’t have before, and a real desire to make a difference for others.”
“For years I kept saying ‘I can’t,’” Bulgur says. “I realized while doing CrossFit that I was actually saying ‘I won’t.’ There’s nothing I won’t do now.”
