It's the beginning...

I've been a runner now for 8 + years.  I love to run.  I love the feeling after the run.  I love the awesome people I've met while running..  But lately, my body has hurting.  The first steps in the morning are painful.  My knees hurt and the plantar fasciitis is threatening to rear its ugly head again.  I know it's the extra weight I'm carrying around.  My times in races lately have been much slower and I just feel sluggish.
I've been reading a lot lately about what makes the Kenyan runners the best in the world. It's a complicated combination of things apparently, but part of it is their BMI.  Most Kenyan runners have a .5 ratio height to weight.  At 5 feet, 3 inches, my ratio now is .38.  To get to that .5 ratio, I need to be at 125 pounds.  Oh boy.  At 164, that is a loss of almost 40 pounds.
Now I'm never going to be a Kenyan-fast runner, My fastest 5k time is 31 minutes.  But what if? What if lose the weight? How fast can I go?  It will be an experiment of sorts. One that will be tough, because I LOVE to eat.  Always have.  But I'm putting it all out there, so lets go.
I'm going to lose the weight by calorie counting.  It's the only way I've lost in the past.  I'm going to eat 1200 calories per day except on workout days. On those days, I'll eat 1500 calories.