Yeah total calories over the month is really the main thing.
But you want to keep your metabolic rate high. Waving calories does this very well I find. I can "feel" my metabolism increasing and decreasing I guess (I go by how warm I feel and vascularity, assuming it's a gauge of metabolic rate). Dropping calories = misery and drop in metabolism for me. I notice this the day after a carb up from a keto run as well, I eat some carbs and I get very, very vascular and get muscle pumps in my calves especially just sitting there lol.
Essentially, you're looking for the system that allows you to keep your metabolic rate the highest and calories the lowest while making life not suck for you. I'm going to play around with waving my macros after this meet, essentially doing high protein, low fat and low carb 4 days a week, 2 saturated fat-fests with low carb and then a high carb, low fat day. I feel the main issue for me is simply being hungry so reducing fats right down will help with this as I will be able to eat ungodly amounts of meat. Then I just need to balance it out on the high calorie days so that I remain in keto, get an influx of calories and don't let my body turn into a protein burner