Most medications are a dose. Wegovy is a schedule: five doses, climbed one rung at a time over more than four months, before you ever reach the full maintenance amount. Understanding that schedule, and keeping your place on it, is most of what tracking Wegovy actually means.
Here is the five-step ladder month by month, why it exists in the first place, what each step tends to feel like, and how a simple log keeps the whole climb from turning into guesswork.
Why Wegovy climbs slowly
Semaglutide, Wegovy's active ingredient, slows gastric emptying. That is part of how it works on appetite, and it is also why the digestive system needs time to adapt. Started at full strength, these medications would be very hard on most stomachs; per the label, nausea is the most common side effect, and it is typically worst after dose increases before fading over the following weeks. The titration ladder is the fix: each step gives your gut roughly a month to acclimate before the next increase arrives.
There is a second, quieter reason the early weeks feel so gradual. Semaglutide has a half-life of about a week, so every weekly shot stacks on what remains of the previous ones, and the level in your body keeps building for four to five weeks after any change before it settles. A new step is not a light switch; it is a slope. Our guide to the semaglutide half-life shows what that slope looks like.
The five steps, month by month
Per the prescribing information, a typical Wegovy schedule steps up about every four weeks:
| Phase | Weekly dose | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-4 | 0.25 mg | A starting dose for acclimation, not intended for maintenance |
| Weeks 5-8 | 0.5 mg | The second rung |
| Weeks 9-12 | 1.0 mg | The midpoint of the climb |
| Weeks 13-16 | 1.7 mg | The last step before full dose |
| Week 17 onward | 2.4 mg | The full maintenance dose |
Treat the timeline as the textbook version, not a deadline. Prescribers commonly hold a step for longer when side effects need more time to settle, and some people end up maintaining at a lower rung; both are ordinary clinical decisions, not detours. The one thing the schedule is never is self-serve: moving up, down, or sideways on the ladder is your prescriber's call. It is not an app's call, and it is not a hunch's call either.
"Which week am I on?" is the whole game
Five steps of roughly four weeks each means that for over four months, the most important fact about your treatment is a number almost nobody can hold in their head: is this week two of the 1.0 mg step, or week three? It matters because your prescriber plans increases around it, because side effects are expected to cluster just after each increase, and because the pharmacy needs the next pen strength to line up with your calendar rather than arrive a week late.
This is exactly the job a tracker with the real Wegovy ladder does well. Each shot is logged with one tap on the dose you actually took, and the week count at the current step keeps itself. GLP 1 Tracker App ships the 0.25 to 2.4 ladder as a preset and does that counting automatically; it never suggests what your next dose should be, only shows where you are in the plan your prescriber set. For how these ladders work across every GLP-1 medication, see GLP-1 titration schedules explained.
Reminders belong to the same job. A shot-day reminder, backed by an overdue alert if the day slips past, costs nothing to set up and quietly removes the most common failure mode of a four-month schedule: the ordinary busy week. On a titration, a protected shot day does double duty, keeping both the dose and the calendar of future steps intact.
GLP 1 Tracker AppFree on the App Store. The Wegovy ladder as a preset, week counts kept for you, and reminders on shot day.
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What each step can feel like
The pattern described on the label is consistent: side effects, nausea above all, tend to be worst in the stretch after a dose increase and fade over the following weeks. Many people experience each new step as a smaller replay of the first one, usually gentler than feared, occasionally rougher. Constipation, fatigue and reflux are common companions on the climb as well, and appetite effects often deepen as the dose rises.
The useful habit is to log side effects with a severity rating from the very first week, so every step has a before and after. A few entries a week is plenty. When the 1.7 mg step turns out rockier than the 1.0 mg step was, a diary shows it plainly, and that record is exactly what informs the "hold here another month or push on" conversation with your prescriber. Our guides to tracking side effects and to the nausea patterns worth tracking go deeper on both.
Missed doses hit differently on a titration
Wegovy's label has a specific rule for a late shot: if your next scheduled dose is more than 2 days (48 hours) away, take the missed dose as soon as you can; if it is closer than that, skip it and continue on your usual day. Never take a double dose. Then comes the rule that surprises people: if you miss two or more doses in a row, the label directs you back to your prescriber, who may restart you at a lower step and re-climb, because the tolerance your gut built fades along with the medication level.
On a titration schedule, in other words, missed weeks can cost more than a dip in your level; they can rewind the ladder itself. That turns reminders and a precise dose log from conveniences into insurance. The full rules for every GLP-1 medication are summarized in our missed dose guide.
Worth logging alongside the dose
The ladder is the skeleton of Wegovy tracking, but the flesh is the same as any GLP-1 routine. A weight trend, read over weeks rather than judged daily, tells you and your prescriber what the medication is actually doing. A daily protein number matters because a suppressed appetite makes protein the easiest thing to quietly under-eat. Water earns a line because thirst cues fade for some people on these medications. And a one-sentence note about how the day felt turns into gold at follow-up time.
Together with the dose log, that is the entire picture a follow-up appointment runs on, and it takes about two minutes a day. If a smart scale already writes to Apple Health, a tracker that imports from Health saves you even the typing.
The takeaway
Wegovy's five steps are a designed, published schedule, and they reward exactly one habit: knowing precisely where you are on them. Log each shot when it happens, rate side effects while they are fresh, and let the app keep the week count. The climb belongs to you and your prescriber; the bookkeeping does not have to. And if your schedule ever stops matching the plan you thought you were on, that is not a tracking problem; it is a question for your prescriber's office, which is exactly the kind of question they expect to get.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I miss a dose of Wegovy?
Per the prescribing information, if your next scheduled dose is more than 2 days (48 hours) away, take the missed dose as soon as you can; if it is closer than that, skip it and continue on your usual day. Never take a double dose. If you miss two or more doses in a row, contact your prescriber, who may restart you at a lower step of the titration so your body can re-acclimate.
What are the dose steps for Wegovy?
Wegovy climbs five steps: 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.7 and finally 2.4 mg once weekly, with increases typically about every four weeks per the prescribing information. The 0.25 mg rung is a starting dose for acclimation, and 2.4 mg is the full maintenance dose. Prescribers commonly hold a step longer when side effects need time to settle, and some people maintain at a lower dose; both are ordinary clinical decisions.
How long does it take to reach the full dose of Wegovy?
On the schedule published in the prescribing information, the full 2.4 mg maintenance dose arrives at week 17, after four weeks each at 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.7 mg. Treat that as the textbook version rather than a deadline: prescribers often hold a step longer to let side effects settle, so many people take more than four months, and the slower pace is a normal part of treatment.
Why does Wegovy start at such a low dose?
Because the digestive system needs time to adapt. Semaglutide slows gastric emptying, and per the label nausea is the most common side effect, typically worst after dose increases before fading over the following weeks. Starting at 0.25 mg and climbing roughly monthly gives your gut about a month to acclimate at each step. That first rung exists purely for acclimation; it is not intended as a maintenance dose.
Do Wegovy side effects come back with each dose increase?
Often, briefly. The pattern described on the label is that side effects, nausea above all, tend to be worst in the weeks just after a dose increase and then fade. Many people experience each new step as a smaller replay of the first one, usually gentler than feared and occasionally rougher. Logging side effects with a severity rating around each increase gives you and your prescriber a clear record for the hold-or-climb conversation.