Probably the most important thing, and yet I'm starting it a month later than everything else..
Really, it's all about nutrition.. Food is fuel not a fantasy.. (That being said, you can make some very fantastic fuels!! Just don't loose sight of it's purpose..)
I do NOT believe in low-carb or no-carb eating.. Too much biochemistry study argues against that.. There are three macronutrients that our bodies need.. Amino Acids (protein for those that didn't study biochemistry), Fatty Acids and Carbohydrates.. Your body NEEDS all of them.. If your brain doesn't get GLUCOSE you will die.. That simple.. Glucose is a basic carbohydrate..
I also get very frustrated with people who say "No sugar".. Umm.. Ya.. Not possible.. Just like all the "Low Carb/No-Carb" stuff is ignoring the fact that sugar is a carbohydrate, and fixate on the starches, people who are advocating no sugar are ignoring things like the presence of sugar in fruits, vegetables and grains..
I've been using My Fitness Pal as my means of logging my food and nutrition.. But, that being said, it has a bunch of flaws (as does everything else..).. I definitely do not use its presets for how much of what I should be eating.. It doesn't advocate anywhere near enough fibre.. And it tells you that you've had to much sugar when you eat 10g.. Which may seem like lots, except when you ARE eating healthy things like fruit, that 10g is nothing, and is definitely not harmful to you! It also only allows you to make a ticker of weight lost.. Which is good.. Except I'm loosing fat, not weight.. And I'm loosing lots of that fat by gaining muscle.. My body-fat percentage is going down, but it's doing so by muscle gains at least as much as by fat lost, so my scale isn't budging.. 15lbs lost doesn't sound like a big deal over 4 months.. But when you realize that it's 15lbs of FAT lost, and at the same time, 10lbs of muscle was gained.. That means that using the "typical" scale, I really lost 25lbs.. My body fat went down nearly 5%.. That's a HUGE difference.. Way more exciting than a simple statement of 15lbs lost says.. (0.5% fat loss per month is considered to be a good rate..)
Based on everything I've read so far, the best ratio for fat loss and muscle building is 60:20:20.. That's 60% carbs, 20% protein, and 20% fat.. There are 9 calories per gram of fat, and 4 calories per gram of protein and carbohydrates.. So.. Now you can calculate how many calories worth of each you should be eating.. At least once you figure out how many calories per day you should be eating.. Yup, I said figure out.. It's not simple but it's not hard.. The answer is very definitely NOT "You are a female so you eat 1500, you are a male so it's 2000, you are trying to loose weight, so it's 1200".. There's actually math involved.. And your numbers will change as your shape changes.. But that's a whole other post, and a whole other discussion.. So look forward to that in the future.. But even if you don't know that, trust me, trying to eat what you're eating in the right balance of protein, carbs and fats will make a huge difference all on it's own.. And you may find (as I typically do) that when you are working on that