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Keto works well in my opinion because of the way humans self negotiate. It's far easier to have a list of yes/no items. No fries, bread, burgers versus calorie counting every food (even in simplified systems like weight watchers). Sure eat all the bacon you want, but it works to limit eating out and limits unhealthy fried foods and take out.

Personal anecdote: my bread tolerance dropped dramatically on a 6 month keto stint. Sandwiches were gross there's just Soo much bread! Yuck! Then I got used to it again but now I stick with mostly rice/beans and have maintained my weight loss which is great

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You may be on to something there. I lowered carbs to well below the typical American diet, but nowhere near were the popular low carb diets go. I aimed for at most 40% of calories from carbs, and actually came in at 30-35%.

It's perhaps not as easy as a yes/no list, but 40% is very easy to figure out from the nutrition label:

max_carbs = calories x 1 g carbs / 10 calories

For example, a Sausage McMuffin w/Egg at McD is 480 calories, so as long as it has no more than 48 g of carbs, it's OK. (It has 28 g).

Make every item on your meal satisfy the 40% criteria, and the meal as a whole will.

Slightly up the effort scale, you can keep a running total of how much you are over or under for the day. Say you are going to get the Sausage McMuffin w/Egg for breakfast. That puts you 20 g of carb ahead. How about adding some McD Donut Sticks to the meal? 280 calories, 33 g of carb. That's 5 g too many carbs for the item to be 40%. But the McMuffin is putting you 20 g ahead, so losing 5 g won't mess up your overall meal. Go ahead and have those Donut Sticks if you like them.