[Angela Foster]
What have you found in terms of women who they want to maintain muscle but fat loss is a goal in terms of structuring that workout?

[Bill Campbell]
Yeah, so I get very philosophical on this. So let's start with saying there's, let's start by what the science tells us. So there's two main goals for people when they lift weights.

One would be to build or maintain muscle and the other one would be to increase or maintain strength. If we're talking about just building muscle, it really doesn't matter if you lift heavy, if you lift moderate, or if you lift light, as long as you, you take each set to near failure. So as long as, if you can do eight reps, as long as you lift six or seven, you're going to have a stimulus to maximise muscle growth.

Same thing if you can lift a weight 20 times, as long as you take it to about 18 or 19 reps, you'll get the same stimulus to build muscle. So lifting heavy or light really doesn't matter if you're trying to build muscle. So with that, I usually tell people, do what you enjoy.

If you like lifting heavy, lift heavy. If your joints can tolerate it, awesome. If you like lifting lighter weights, as long as you take it to where you really can't do many more reps at the end of that set, then do that.

I don't want to tell you to do something that's less enjoyable if it doesn't matter. Now, where it does matter is if you're trying to increase strength. The only way to maximise strength is to lift with heavier weights.

So lifting with lighter weights does not do much for strength enhancement. So with that, I would always ask, what's your goal? And then back into, into that goal.

So there's, there's the first thing. Now, where I get philosophical about this question is I do not, I like to look at resistance training as a path towards an anabolic stimulus on the body to increase muscle and strength. So I don't like thinking I'm going to go into my lifting weights as partly a calorie burning exercise.

And the reason I don't like that is because when, when, when we start lift lifting weights as a conditioning or as calorie burning, we start to make decisions about how we would do structure our programmes in a way that doesn't give us good outcomes. And what I mean by that is if the primary goal is to be anabolic, we want to lift weights close to failure and not do tonnes and tonnes of volume hours and hours of work. Go in, do your lifting, lift hard, whether it's heavy, moderate or lightweights, and then get out.

If you want to burn calories or you're trying to be in a calorie deficit for either to lose excess body fat, to lose weight, then I would say the correct levers to pull there are diet. So reduction in calories or aerobic exercise. But as soon as we start looking at our lifting programmes as a way to burn more calories or to do conditioning, that's when we start to say, Hey, I'm going to lift for two hours and I'm just going to do a bunch of sets.

And those sets usually tend not to be very high quality. So to me, the lifting is one purpose. Burning calories is another.

[Angela Foster]
That makes a lot of sense. So if you, if you try and burn calories through your resistance training deliberately, you're going to compromise your efforts in terms of building strength and muscle. Um, just to clarify then for people, you were, you were drawing a distinction there between muscle and pure strength, um, and how strength needs to be much heavier.

So lower reps. So if we take a, for example, let's take a move that many women find difficult, right? Which would be a pull up.

So if a woman wants to progress to, uh, an unassisted pull up, um, to build that level of strength, are they better off than, you know, having a little bit of resistance, but going lower reps to build that strength up in order to get to the final stage of doing a pull up than doing, for example, 10, 12 reps with assistance?

[Bill Campbell]
I would use like a progression. So like, uh, again, I would just, let's do with a pull up movement. If the goal, if the end goal is to do one unassisted pull up, and I love that goal, let's start with using band assisted pull ups.

So are you familiar with that concept of, so that way you're actually practising the movement that you want to be able to do. And yeah, so the band might allow you to do four or five or eight, and then you just keep reducing the tension on the band. So there's more on your muscles.

So that is, that's personally how I would help somebody with that specific goal. Um, so yes, doing more reps initially with assistance, and then just keep pulling that assistance away. Um, another thing that I really like about pull ups is just, just lowering yourself.

So you're, you start here and then you just lower yourself. Like it's like an eccentric portion. That's a great way to, to gain strength as well.

And what I love about it is again, it's, you're actually practising the movement that you want to be able to do eventually.

[Angela Foster]
Yeah. A hundred percent. That, that, that move actually was the one that really helped me master pull ups, uh, unassisted.

Yeah. I was doing that eccentric lowering for quite some time. Yeah.

And then got it.

[Bill Campbell]
So where are you at now? Or how many, you can do one completely unassisted?

[Angela Foster]
I can do about five or six pull ups now. Yeah.

[Bill Campbell]
Wow.

[Angela Foster]
Yeah.

[Bill Campbell]
So that's exactly about what I can do. Um, I'm not good at, I mean, I wish I could do more and I do them a several times a week, but that's, I found is that you like, do you not find that with pull ups, you have to keep doing them.

[Angela Foster]
That's what I find. I mean, I suppose it's true with all weights, right? But it's like, I don't like them.

And so if you fall out of them, then you're not going to be able to do them for a bit. You kind of have to keep doing them if you see what I mean, which makes sense. Cause I guess with a deadlift, right?

If you didn't deadlift for months at a time, you're not going to walk up to the bar and be able to lift it as heavy. Um, but I think you kind of just wish don't need that at any point in time, you can just go up and pull out a whole number of flips. Uh, but it's not that easy.

Yeah. Um, I want to talk to you about protein because this makes a big difference as well. And I think I'd heard you speak about the fact that protein in itself can also help with fat loss.

Um, what should we know about protein for our, uh, muscle goals and also fat loss?

[Bill Campbell]
Yeah. So to that, to that statement, there's several studies showing that menopausal aged women do not consume enough protein. So like deficient levels.

Um, I think the average was like 70 grammes per day. And one study in particular when researchers gave, and these were not training women. So just your average sedentary middle-aged menopausal aged women, when the only thing they changed was to increase their protein.

That was it. They weren't no more exercising that in increase carbs or fats, just the act of increasing protein resulted in a significant gain of lean mass and a significant loss of body fat. So that's pretty powerful because again, that is an exercise response, but we're not doing that through exercise.

We're doing that through just increasing protein. Um, so what oftentimes when, when I will help someone male or female who has the goal of, Hey, I want to, um, I want to lose body fat instead of going right to, well, let me decrease your calories. Cause as soon as we do, at least for myself, if I reduce my calories, well now I'm hungry.

Now I'm more grouchy. I don't like life as much. So if I can get an outcome that doesn't involve reducing calories, that is an awesome approach or an awesome strategy.

And again, that's been, we have research and again, and I've used to be a, um, a personal trainer, a professional fitness trainer earlier in my career. And I did the same thing and saw insult again, anecdotally the same outcomes. So protein is anabolic and for, for muscle.

And it happens to be catabolic for fat. Um, and again, that's not just one study there. There's multiple studies showing that optimal protein.

Now on the other side of this, you don't have to think, Oh my gosh, I have to eat so much protein because protein's hard. If you try to get, let's say, um, 2.2 grammes per kg, that's very difficult. The only way I do that is if I take protein supplements.

So a good goal in terms of the amount, which there's, there's research to suggest this is all you need for optimising lean muscle mass is 1.6 grammes of protein per kilogramme of body mass per day. And for our American listeners, that's 0.75 grammes of protein per pound per day. So yes, that can be a lot for some people.

And let's just say that's, that's too much. Well, if you're currently eating, let's say one, and I can get you to 1.3 grammes per kg. Yes.

It's not meeting the 1.6, but it's still better than one. You're eating now eating 1.3. There's still a lot of benefit just by approaching this optimal threshold for protein intake.

[Angela Foster]
And when you talk about the optimal threshold, so if someone gets to the point where they're one gramme per pound of body weight, um, do the results in terms of the fat loss and the muscle gain then start to top off? Like, is there any benefit to going over that?

[Bill Campbell]
Um, very little. So after you pass 0.75 grammes per pound, just as you said that you still, there is still an, an anabolic benefit, but the more and more you eat, the less and less that benefit becomes.

In this Bitesize episode, we revisit a key conversation on why resistance training and fat loss need to be treated as two separate goals — and why blending them usually backfires. This short-form cut pulls together the core science on training for muscle/strength versus training for calorie burn, why "lifting to near failure" matters more than the weight on the bar, and a practical progression toward an unassisted pull-up. It also revisits the protein research: why menopausal women are commonly deficient, and how simply increasing protein intake can drive meaningful fat loss and lean mass gains — no calorie-cutting required.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

Why lifting heavy, moderate, or light doesn't matter for muscle growth — but matters enormously for building strength
How to structure your resistance training if your goal is to build or maintain muscle versus increase strength
Why treating your lifting sessions as a "calorie-burning workout" can undermine both your strength and muscle-building results
A practical progression (band-assisted reps, then eccentric lowering) for working toward an unassisted pull-up
Why menopausal-aged women are commonly deficient in protein, and what happens when protein intake alone is increased
The optimal protein target (1.6g/kg or ~0.75g/lb of body weight per day) for maximizing lean mass and fat loss
Where protein intake starts to hit diminishing returns