James G wrote:

Either way, I try to completely eliminate water bounce by weighing
myself first thing in the morning, AFTER using the bathroom.

This minimizes water retention bounce but does not eliminate
it. Over time I tracked my weight daily for over a year and did
weekly averages. It works well for anyone who doesn't have
an emotional reaction to water retention swings on the scale.
It took me, hmmm, about two years to acheive that emotional
detachment to get to the point I could comfortably weigh daily
and just note the swings. Fortunately for my low carb learning
efforts I had done those two years back in my low fat days so
I went into low carb already able to handle daily readings. Not
many folks start out a new diet able to handle that.

I think it's important in maintenance to know your water
retention swing. You always know if you're on or off plan and
staying on plan is proof against storing new fat so any swing
why on plan without a cheat has to be random water retention.
Mine ended up 6 pounds. Consider - If I tried to stay in a 4
pound range in maintenance it would be absolutely impossible
for me to do so. With a 6 pound water retention swing no
amount of effort can ever be sufficient to keep my scale
readings in a 4 pound range.

It's a conundrum - Folks should only get on the scale at a
frequency they can handle emotionally, but folks need to know
their random water retnetion swing to know how to set their
maintenance swing range. It means weighings need to be
done in a way as to gradually build emotional ability to handle
them.