What titration is, and why it has a schedule
Every GLP-1 starts at a dose too low to do much, on purpose. The first weeks exist to let your gut adapt, not to produce results. Titration is that staged climb: a fixed period at each strength before the next increase, so your body meets the drug gradually instead of all at once. Start people at a therapeutic dose and a large share of them quit within a month from nausea and vomiting. Climb slowly and most tolerate the same dose fine.
The calendar above takes the labeled schedule for your medication and lays it onto real dates from your first injection, so “week 13” becomes an actual Tuesday you can plan around.
The standard schedules
| Medication | Step interval | Path | Time to top dose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zepbound / Mounjaro (tirzepatide) | 4 weeks | 2.5 → 5 → 7.5 → 10 → 12.5 → 15 mg weekly | about 20 weeks |
| Wegovy injection (semaglutide) | 4 weeks | 0.25 → 0.5 → 1 → 1.7 → 2.4 mg weekly, with an optional 7.2 mg | about 16 weeks to 2.4 mg |
| Wegovy tablets (semaglutide) | 30 days | 1.5 → 4 → 9 → 25 mg daily | about 90 days |
| Ozempic (semaglutide) | 4 weeks minimum | 0.25 → 0.5 → 1 → 2 mg weekly | about 12 weeks or more |
| Rybelsus (oral semaglutide) | 30 days | 3 → 7 → 14 mg daily | about 60 days |
| Saxenda (liraglutide) | 1 week | 0.6 → 1.2 → 1.8 → 2.4 → 3 mg daily | about 4 weeks |
| Victoza (liraglutide) | 1 week minimum | 0.6 → 1.2 → 1.8 mg daily | about 2 weeks |
| Trulicity (dulaglutide) | 4 weeks | 0.75 → 1.5 → 3 → 4.5 mg weekly | about 12 weeks |
| Foundayo (orforglipron) | 30 days | 0.8 → 2.5 → 5.5 → 9 → 14.5 → 17.2 mg daily | about 150 days |
Foundayo has the slowest ladder here, because every step is held at least 30 days. Saxenda has the fastest, a week per step, which is one of several ways it behaves unlike the weekly injections.
Two things to read carefully here. The intervals are minimums, not deadlines. Four weeks is the earliest you’d normally step up, not a date you’re obliged to hit. And the tirzepatide steps at 7.5 mg and 12.5 mg are explicitly optional; plenty of people go 5 → 10 or stop at 10 entirely.
What each phase feels like
Weeks 1–4, the starting dose. Appetite usually drops within days, which surprises people who expected nothing from a “tolerance dose.” Nausea, early fullness, reflux, and constipation are the common four. Most of it is manageable with smaller meals, less fat and fried food, and more water than feels necessary.
Each increase. Expect a flare for two or three days after stepping up, then a settle. This pattern is so consistent it’s a useful planning tool. Don’t schedule a step-up the day before a wedding or a long flight.
The middle doses. This is where weight loss usually becomes steady and where most people find the dose they’ll actually stay on. It’s also where protein intake starts to matter a lot: appetite is low, and lean mass is what you’re protecting. The protein calculator sets a target for that.
Maintenance. Whatever dose you land on, you stay there. GLP-1s treat a chronic condition rather than curing one, so the maintenance dose is the plan, not a plateau to break through.
When to go slower
The slower setting on the calendar stretches each interval by half again, so four weeks becomes six, one week becomes two. Extending a step is common practice when side effects are heavy, and it costs you far less than you’d think: the trials that produced the headline results ran for over a year, so a few extra weeks in titration barely moves the endpoint.
Reasons to talk to your clinician about slowing down:
- Nausea or vomiting that doesn’t settle within about a week of an increase
- Any vomiting that risks dehydration, or an inability to keep fluids down
- Severe constipation that isn’t responding to fiber, fluids, and movement
- Weight loss that’s happening faster than roughly 1–2% of body weight per week
- Simply feeling awful. “I can tolerate this” is not the bar you’re aiming for
And a reason to talk to them urgently rather than slowly: severe, persistent abdominal pain, especially radiating to your back, is a stop-and-call symptom, not a titration-pace question.
Using the calendar file
The download button builds a standard .ics file in your browser, one recurring event per dose phase, so every injection day lands on your calendar with the dose in the title and the what-to-expect note in the description. Nothing is uploaded; the file is assembled locally and handed to you.
Import it into Apple Calendar by opening the file, or into Google Calendar via Settings → Import & export → Import. If your schedule shifts, whether a delayed prescription, a hold at a dose, a switch to a slower pace, regenerate it from the new date rather than editing events one by one.
If your prescriber has you on a different schedule than the label default, follow theirs. Off-schedule dosing is common and often deliberate, and a calendar generated from a standard template shouldn’t override the person who wrote your prescription.
Limitations
This lays a published schedule onto dates. It doesn’t prescribe, adjust, or approve anything, and it can’t know your tolerance, your labs, or why your clinician chose the pace they did. Compounded products are not FDA-approved and can be dosed differently from the brand schedules shown here. Confirm your vial’s concentration and your dose with the pharmacy that dispensed it. Bring any change of plan to your prescriber first.