Episode 460: Wesley Hunt: The "Sweat Every Day" Rule That Built a Congressman's Unbreakable Mindset

What's the secret to building discipline that actually sticks? In this Fitness Friday episode on the Habits and Hustle podcast, Congressman Wesley Hunt shares his no-nonsense approach to developing mental toughness through daily physical challenges. We discuss why sweating every single day is non-negotiable - even if it means walking five miles on a treadmill after a steak dinner. We also explore his "just do it consistently" philosophy, the power of accomplishment psychology, and why he chooses intermittent fasting and strategic workout timing over perfection. Wesley Hunt represents Congressional District 38 in Houston, Texas. A West Point graduate and former Apache helicopter pilot with three master's degrees from Cornell, Hunt served eight years in the Army before entering politics. He recently interviewed for Secretary of Defense and continues to serve on the House Judiciary and Natural Resources committees. What we discuss: The "sweat every day" rule for building discipline Why consistency beats perfection in fitness routines Using superficial goals (beach body) as legitimate motivation Michael Jordan's self-motivation mind tricks One meal a day strategy for busy travel schedules Working out between noon and 4 PM vs. morning routines Thank you to our sponsor: Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here https://bio.me/?utm_source=Jennifer, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle http://davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle. Find more about Wesley Hunt: Website: https://hunt.house.gov/ Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:08Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:30Jen Cohen?

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• 1:11Jen Cohen?

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• 1:57Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so let's talk about discipline. I think it's a big one. We said it a few times here, right? How to build discipline, right? I'm a big person, I'm a believer that the number one thing, besides doing all these other, you know, ancillary things and this, that, and the other, I think the first thing is you need to have a daily like workout regimen. That's the best way to build discipline, in my opinion, and it teaches you so many different skills. How do you feel? What are the best ways, if someone's listening to this podcast, and if they're not that disciplined, how do they start training that muscle?

• 2:32Speaker 02

  My first word of advice is, do something where you sweat every day. When you're starting off, it doesn't matter what that is. Go on a walk. I don't care. Go on a walk, go to the gym whenever you can, even go to the sauna if you do something, where you break a sweat every single day, because that's the challenge that you have to put in your mind, that you have to overcome that, and it lingers in your mind every day. So, you know, if I start to get to the afternoon, even at night, and I've had a very busy day, and I get back to my house in Houston, I get back to my apartment up here in DC, and I haven't worked out yet, I'm not putting my head in the pillow unless I go do something, where I work out. There have been times where I've been busy all day, went out to dinner,

• 3:15Speaker 02

  had a steak and dessert and all this stuff, had worked out, get back to my apartment, and I go walk on the treadmill for five miles.

• 3:23Jen Cohen?

  For five miles?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Unless I can't sleep.

• 3:25Jen Cohen?

  I mean, also, I think working out, people have this idea that like, oh, I'm too tired, I can't work out. But like, energy begets energy, right? Like, I feel way more energized when I work out. Not to mention the mood enhancing thing, like, if I don't work out, my productivity throughout the day is so much worse than if I actually did that workout.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  The human psyche, human condition, human condition, derives on accomplishment. So, as difficult as it was to get to the gym, the level of accomplishment that I feel when I am done is always worth it.

• 4:00Jen Cohen?

  Yes, I totally agree with you.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  It's just sometimes getting there is always the hard part, but once you get there and show up, you surprise them what you can accomplish.

• 4:10Jen Cohen?

  I think that level of accomplishment is like, I think that's a really great way of putting it because that level of accomplishment, that it kind of proves to yourself, like A, number one, I did it. So there's like this like feeling of like confidence that you get, that you actually followed through and that you finished something. But it does like shift in your brain, something where it just, it allows for everything else. I feel like to me, that's why it's the most fundamental habit before, before anything else. And I get like, I get why you did that. Like even though it was like 10, let's say you go home from dinner, you had this huge steak or whatever else, but you probably felt so like gross that you needed to kind of do that to kind of

• 4:51Speaker 02

  To offset it, yeah.

• 4:52Jen Cohen?

  Offset it, right?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:00Jen Cohen?

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• 5:45Jen Cohen?

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• 6:30Jen Cohen?

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• 6:46Jen Cohen?

  What are other things? Like tell me how other ways that people couldn't start training that discipline muscle in your opinion?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  My best friend from Westbrook was a powerlifting champion while we were there. His name was Adam Smoot and he was a physical freak of nature. He was a complete animal. And everybody would always ask him for advice, like Adam, like what do we do? Like what program? What supplement? Like how much protein? Do you do pre and do all this stuff? He had the best answer that stuck with me now for over 20 years. He said, it doesn't matter what you do. Just do it consistently. He goes, go find a workout program, go find a workout regimen that's conducive for your schedule and your life and your needs, what your goals are. And just do it consistently and you will ultimately get better.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  And then as you get better, you see improvement, well, then you want to see more improvement, want to get better. And then that's how you start to build that drive within you. You start losing some weight. You start getting stronger here and there. You're like, well, I want to get stronger. I'm looking pretty good. How can I get better? That's one way of doing it. The other thing you talked about was setting a goal for yourself. So like, summer is coming. Summer is always coming. Breakfast is always coming. This is back, this is back in the day, we were going to Cancun and Acapulco, all that fun stuff. It was like, you don't want to go in Cancun, Acapulco, looking like a slop. So you start realizing that, like, I want to work out because I want to look good when I'm on the beach. That might seem something that's like so, so mundane and so subtle that like, who cares about that kind of thing?

• 8:19Jen Cohen?

  Or so, or so just like, it's so superficial, but that sometimes is all you need.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like how do you, how do you motivate yourself to give yourself that drive?

• 8:29Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  I'm a huge Michael Jordan fan and and now that you've seen all these stories come out about Michael Jordan and things that he did to motivate himself. He would lie to himself about one of his opponents talking trash about him just to get himself going in the game. And then he would obviously go out and score forty points. He'd be like, what happened? Well, I told myself that this dude said that I wasn't the best player in the world. Another player would be like, I never said that. He'd be like, well, I told myself that to get myself going. That's just one example.

• 8:58Jen Cohen?

  I know.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Whatever you can do to to motivate yourself, it it's it might be as it might be literally as superficial as I want to look good when I go to the beach.

• 9:07Jen Cohen?

  Totally. I think like, and there's nothing wrong with having these mental mind tricks like all you should think you should hear some of the crazy ideas or the crazy things that go through my head when I'm running just to kind of keep me from from stopping, right? Because I think that's funny thing is everyone thinks for me and there was like, oh, how would you say so motivated? Believe me, it's not motivation. It's actually discipline. I don't love working out. I hate it. I I did. I hated it today. I hate it yesterday. I dread it. But it's that feeling of accomplishment and feeling of I did something that like helps me go through the rest of my day in a different in a different mindset. So it's not about liking it. God knows. I do a lot of things I hate, right?

• 9:47Jen Cohen?

  And but I was also gonna say about the Michael Jordan thing, like to me, it's like whatever gets you to do what you need to do. Who cares? But what I what I was also gonna say, and I can't really remember what I was gonna say now, but that, but I don't remember now, but.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  One good thing for me too is like I have little kids. I have I have six, four and two year old and.

• 10:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  And I want to be healthy for them.

• 10:08Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  By the time they're graduating high school and college and all this stuff, I still want to be, I still want to be a tip top shape for them. You know, so it's not just about it's not just about you. It's about your family. It's about your overall health. It's important to be a healthy person, have a leaner phenotype. All these things are really important. Not just for, you know, for the superficial side of it, for the look side of it, but for the functional health side of it, too.

• 10:31Jen Cohen?

  Absolutely. So what is your routine? Give me your day. What's the day in the life now?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Uh, for my workout splits?

• 10:37Jen Cohen?

  Or just in general, like, give me your, what's your habits? Like, what are your ma- what's your morning routine? What's your habits? Like, how do you stay?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  That's the crazy thing about being a congressman. Every day is good. I actually, I don't have a set day, so a set like time, like,

• 10:49Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  At the same time every day. It depends on when I can squeeze it in. And so usually I carve out time at some point, a couple of hours between noon or o'clock is when I go to the gym. I also eat one meal a day. That's my thing. I eat one meal a day and that meal usually comes at about between four and six o'clock. Because you get up to DC, running around, you're traveling all over the country. I was on a hundred and thirty eight flights last year. And so by the time you're done with breakfast and then lunch and then cocktail hour, then happy hour and then dinner, you look up and you've gained like twenty pounds. So I have made this a very simple proposition for myself. One meal a day, workout between noon and four o'clock at some point. Accomplish those two things. I'm good to go. That works for me.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Doesn't work for everybody else. Some people don't have time to leave work in the middle of the day. So you gotta get up in the morning, you gotta do it at night. Well, I discourage people from working out at night because by the time you get home and you've had a full day, it's, it can be quite difficult to motivate yourself. Therefore, getting up in the morning and knocking it out is also not a terrible, not a terrible.

• 11:54Jen Cohen?

  Why don't you do that then? Why are you waiting until noon to four? Why don't you just like knock it out the first thing in the morning?

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Cause I got old.

• 12:01Jen Cohen?

  Now you got old and?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I got old and getting up in the morning, I'm not, I wanna have a very good workout. I wanna walk around for a little while, get, get, get the joints going, get moving around, feel awake and, and then do it. If I have to get up in the morning, I will though. So there, there are times where I look at my schedule and the only time I could do this at five o'clock in the morning. And I'm in the gym at five o'clock in the morning.