Planning My Macros

It's January so everyone's on a diet. At least four people have told me they're going to lose 20 lbs by cutting calories and doing lots of cardio. I cringe. You can totally drop a lot of pounds off the scale if you eat nothing and run your little heart out, because I've done it like 9 times, and I'm not going to tell you not to do that if that's the plan you choose. I just thought you might want to know my plan of attack for 2015.

Things I know to be true:

1. I need a plan if I am going to be successful.
2. I need a tracker if I am going to be successful.
3. I won't cook vegetables that don't come out of microwavable bags.
4. High quality ingredients are expensive and then you have to cook them yourself anyway.
5. Carbs are the devil. I need to eat a certain amount of protein and fat every day to meet my goals.

I know how to eat clean. I know how to read labels. I'm pretty damn knowledgeable and yet I don't have the body I want so I've decided to make some changes. My goals are to give my body the nutrition it needs to train at high intensity multiple times a week and to change my body composition. I was looking at photos from old Weight Loss Wednesdays where I weigh the same as I do now, and I look much different, (read worse), because I had a lot more fat and a lot less muscle. I want to lose body fat while maintaining the muscle I have now AND hopefully add some more. This means that my weight in pounds doesn't matter to me but the percentage of my weight that is fat does.