The ladder, and why it takes four months
The standard Wegovy titration is 0.25 mg weekly for four weeks, then 0.5 mg, then 1 mg, then 1.7 mg, then 2.4 mg as the maintenance dose. Four weeks per step is not arbitrary: semaglutide has a half-life of about seven days, so a new dose takes roughly four to five weeks to reach a stable level. Step up sooner and you are climbing while the previous step is still rising underneath you, which is where a lot of avoidable nausea comes from.
| Weeks | Weekly dose | What is usually happening |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | 0.25 mg | A starting dose rather than a treatment dose. Side effects, if any, tend to be at their sharpest in the first fortnight. |
| 5 to 8 | 0.5 mg | The first dose most people feel properly. Appetite change is usually obvious by now. |
| 9 to 12 | 1 mg | Often the point where weight loss becomes steady rather than initial. |
| 13 to 16 | 1.7 mg | A step some people find harder than the ones before it. |
| 17 onwards | 2.4 mg | Maintenance. Some people stay at 1.7 mg, or lower, on clinical advice. |
The usual schedule. Your prescriber may move you faster, slower, or hold you at a step indefinitely – track what you were actually on, not the plan. See dose schedules and titration.
Penwise records the schedule you are on, including the steps you held longer, the ones you skipped and the weeks you went backwards. When a dose is late it stays visible as late. When you changed strength, the change is dated, so a later question about “when did it stop working” has an answer rather than a guess.
Two pens, and the one that surprises people
Wegovy ships in two designs depending on where you are. The single-dose pen is one shot and done. Outside the US there is a four-dose FlexTouch pen, and its behaviour changes with the strength you were dispensed.
| Single-dose pen | FlexTouch (4 doses) | |
|---|---|---|
| Doses in the device | 1 | 4 |
| Strengths | 0.25 to 2.4 mg | 0.25 to 2.4 mg |
| Volume injected | 0.5 ml, rising to 0.75 ml at 1.7 mg | 0.37 ml at 0.25 and 0.5 mg, 0.75 ml above |
| Days usable once started | used at once | 42 |
Every FlexTouch strength is its own concentration, so a fixed volume delivers a different dose on each. This is why a click count from one strength is meaningless on another.
That last row is the one that catches people out. Six weeks is not four weekly doses plus a buffer – it is four doses with two weeks of slack, and if you skip a week or hold a dose the discard date can arrive with liquid still in the pen. Penwise counts the 42 days down alongside your remaining doses and tells you which clock runs out first.
Reading weight against dose, not against the calendar
The single most useful thing a Wegovy tracker does is put the weight trend and the dose history on the same timeline. Almost every question people bring to a forum is really a question about that overlay.
- Did the loss slow down because the dose plateaued, or four weeks earlier for another reason?
- Was the drop after the last increase the increase, or the week you could not eat?
- Is this a real plateau, or two weeks of water weight over a trend that has not changed?
- Has the appetite effect faded at this dose, or did the food noise come back on a specific day of the week?
Penwise keeps weight, body fat, lean mass, waist and resting heart rate alongside the dose log, with a goal weight and progress against it. If you weigh on a scale that talks to Apple Health or Health Connect, the numbers arrive on their own.
Side effects through the climb
Wegovy side effects cluster around dose increases rather than spreading evenly. The first fortnight of a new step is where nausea, reflux and constipation are most likely, and for most people each step is easier than the fear of it.
Penwise tracks twenty named side effects on a 0 to 5 scale and nine sliding measures including appetite, fullness and food noise, then looks for the timing across your own history rather than a generic curve. It only reports a pattern when it has enough of your data to stand behind it. The side effect timeline covers what tends to land when.
Where you are in the week
Semaglutide is a long-tailed drug: about a seven-day half-life, so a weekly dose never fully clears before the next one. Penwise+ estimates the level from your logged doses, which is what makes the difference between “my shot was Tuesday” and “the average level is still climbing, four weeks into this step”. The arithmetic is explained in how long semaglutide stays in your system.
The appointment, and the report
Wegovy prescribing usually comes with reviews, and reviews go better with a record. Penwise+ produces a dated PDF with your dose history, weight trend, adherence and recorded side effects, which you can hand over or send ahead. There is a clinical-standard export as well, and free CSV and JSON export of everything.
None of it leaves your phone
There is no account, no sign-in and no Penwise server that receives health data. A weight-management history is about as personal as a log gets, and the safest design is the one where we never have it. The only copy that leaves the device is a backup you export yourself, encrypted on the phone with a passphrase we do not hold.
Track the whole climb, from 0.25 to 2.4
Free core tracker, no account, nothing sent anywhere. Fourteen days of Penwise+ included, no card needed.
Common questions
Is there a free Wegovy tracker?
How long does the Wegovy titration take?
How long can I use a Wegovy FlexTouch pen once I start it?
Can I track Wegovy and my weight in one app?
Does Penwise handle Wegovy tablets as well as pens?
Does my Wegovy data go to a server?
Sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to the product information a regulator publishes, or to a published trial. Links open on the site of whoever issued the document.
- Wegovy: EPAR product information European Medicines Agency
- Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity (STEP 1) New England Journal of Medicine, 2021
- Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Obesity without Diabetes (SELECT) New England Journal of Medicine, 2023
Penwise is a tracking and education tool, not a medical device. Nothing on this page is medical advice, a diagnosis or a recommendation to start, stop or change a dose. Dosing decisions belong to you and your clinician. Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, Saxenda and Victoza are trademarks of Novo Nordisk; Mounjaro, Zepbound and Trulicity are trademarks of Eli Lilly. Penwise is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to either company.