If you’re ever tried to build muscle, you know that without proper nutrition, you aren’t going to get results. Nutrition comprises at least half the game when it comes to building muscle, so it’s critical you take some time to make sure you know fact from fiction.

The following are some of the top muscle building nutritional myths that are circulating around. Be sure you don’t fall prey to any of these!

1. You should eat everything in sight.

While you definitely need more calories in order to gain weight, there is such a thing as too much . The problem with overdoing it with your eating is that you will end up gaining a great deal of fat mass along with the muscle tissue because the body can only process so much muscle at a time.

For example, if you over eat by 1000 calories a day and only 500 of these can go towards muscle tissue building, the remaining 500 will be turned to fat. Unfortunately the body cannot just ‘bank’ calories for later muscle building and must do something with this excess.

So, if you aren’t gaining weight, for sure, eat more so that you are. But, at the same time, don’t eat so much that you’re rapidly accumulating fat mass along with it. Later on, that accumulated fat mass is going to be a pain to try and take off.

2. Eating more protein increases your chances of building muscle

Here’s another very common thought process among individuals. They believe that since muscle is made out of protein, the more protein they eat, the more muscle they build. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work this way.

The body has a set need for protein each day, which includes things such as keeping your immune system healthy, keeping all the essential processes in the body running, and building and repairing bodily tissues – including muscle.

Once you’ve consumed enough protein to meet these needs, any extra protein will be broken down, with part of it being excreted by the body and the other part either used for energy (depending on how many carbohydrates in the diet are present) or else being turned to body fat.

So, if you aren’t getting sufficient protein in the first place, most definitely – you MUST do this – without exception if you hope to build muscle. If, on the other hand, you are already consuming enough, any extra will just be added calories that could have just as easily come from carbohydrates or dietary fat.

3. Avoid eating large amounts at night in order to prevent gaining fat with your muscle gain.

Finally, the third myth that’s quite common amongst muscle-building people is that they think in order to keep the fat gain to a minimum, they should just eat fewer calories at night.

This is partially true in that the timing of your calories can play a role. To maximize muscle recovery and synthesis, you’ll always do better consuming a large dose of calories around your workout. This is the prime time your body is ready to use the nutrients for muscle building. BUT, and this is a big but, it still does boil down to total calories taken in during the day.

If this means you choose to have a meal before bed and it’s still in line with your daily allotment for calories, it will not lead to fat gain any more than a meal eating a few hours earlier.

So, be sure you don’t believe any of these false muscle building notions. The sooner you can get your diet in line properly, the sooner you will start seeing results.