It is possible, indeed, and it does sound as though you are back, given the feeling in your mouth, etc.
I’d like to focus, however, on what it is you are finding so hard about “strict keto.” If you give us some idea of what you are thinking that involves, I suspect there might be a misconception or two we could clear up, and that would make things easier for you. I don’t find my way of doing keto to be restrictive at all—though I do still get carb cravings that can occasionally be hard to deal with. I am a sugar addict, after all, lol!
Another thing you mention is restricting calories, and I know I can help there. The point of a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to restrict carbohydrate to a level that keeps insulin secretion at a minimum, since insulin is the main fat-storage hormone. Next, we want to keep protein moderate; we have to have it, but we don’t want so much that it, too, stimulates insulin secretion. And lastly, the key to keto is to eat fat to satiety. This is because fat stimulates the least amount of insulin secretion, so it is the safest source of calories.
The point of eating fat to satiety is to give our body enough energy to heal our metabolic disorders, which includes burning off excess stored fat. Burning off fat requires both low insulin and abundant calories, because when we restrict calories, the body lowers its metabolic rate and hangs on to fat with a death grip. In times of abundance, however, the body ramps up its metabolic rate and allows excess fat to be metabolized. And eating fat to satiety is the way to make sure we are giving our body enough calories.
I found it took a few weeks for my satiety signaling to turn on, but once it did, I couldn’t eat nearly as much as when I was a carb-burner. So I did end up eventually eating fewer calories, but I didn’t have to count them. I found that deliberate calorie restriction never worked for me, but this kind of automatic restriction is fine, because I am never hungry, except when it’s time to eat again. In the old days, I could fill my belly to literally the bursting point with rice or pasta and still want more. Now I just lose interest in eating when my belly is around half full. It’s really weird! The first time satiety happened to me, my plate was still half full, but I couldn’t eat another bite—that never happened before in my life!
