balance in properly counting cals

1. You can't convert fat to muscle. You lose fat. You gain muscle. Separate things.

2. Losing fat simply requires you to eat in a deficit. You may also lose some muscle but not having too large a deficit, eating sufficient protein and continuing resistance training will limit this. You could also do a recomp to gain muscle very slowly and lose fat very slowly.... It may depend on your starting point and goals

3. Use this app to count calories. After you've determined your calories for a deficit, Weigh everything with calories that goes in your mouth, making sure you stay within your calorie goal. If you eat too many carbs, eat less of the foods with lots of carbs. Same applies to fat and protein.

I prefer the approach of treating protein and fat as minimum goals with carbs falling wherever they happen to fall within an overall calorie allowance. Far more flexible.

The only time I prioritise carbs is when I'm doing a multi hour cycle ride. IMO carbs can never be too high for someone active as long as you meet your protein and fat goals and are under your calorie target.

Counting calories accurately really means using a food scale. I tend not bother so much for low calorie density items and pre-packaged food as the inevitable errors tend to cancel themselves out.

But weighing calorie dense items or even frequent use items a few times to check quantities is very educational....
"Is that tiny amount of breakfast cereal really considered a portion?"
"Wow - with some care I can really pack some peanut butter onto my spoon".
"So the scoop that comes with my whey protein isn't actually accurate."

Something else to watch out for is awful entries in the food database - you would be amazed how many meat entries have zero protein!