I don't believe that calories are the end all be all. I can plow through a ton of calories while keeping my carbs low and still loose body fat.
And I personally find it much easier to drop fat than to add muscle. I've read and experienced to a certain degree that adding 1 to 2 pounds of muscle per month is doing pretty good. During my slim down last year I averaged 5 pounds of fat loss over a 10 month period (much easier).
I have also read a lot about steady state cardio (jogging) leading to long term muscle loss. If you're going to run it sounds like internals are the way to go (fast/slow/fast/slow). Something about the thyroid dropping because your body thinks that it's in survival mode. Here's a recent blog post on the cardio question that goes way more in-depth
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-e...#axzz2Yg7WPekJ