Plan your first 12 weeks

What the planner does

You give it two things: the date of your first injection and which label schedule your prescriber is following. It returns one row per week for 12 or 20 weeks. Each row has the date, the label dose for that week, a phase tag (first injection, initiation, step up, escalation, last label step), and three short paragraphs: what the label says about that stretch, what that tends to mean day to day, and one thing to do. Step-up weeks are highlighted because they are where side effects most often return. The download button writes the whole plan as a calendar file that opens in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook.

What it does not do

It does not know your prescription. It lays out the brand label schedule at the minimum step length: four weeks per step for all four products (section 2.1 of each label). Your prescriber may hold a step for longer, stop at a lower maintenance dose, or never escalate past 0.5 mg or 5 mg. When the planner and your prescription disagree, follow the prescription and ask why at the next visit. It never chooses a dose and it does not model your weight.

How to use it well

1. Run it the day you get your start date. Put the calendar file on your phone.
2. Look at the step-up rows and check that each one lines up with a check-in or a shipment of the next strength. If it does not, that is a call to make now rather than in week 4.
3. Read the row for the coming week each injection day. The "one thing to do" items are short on purpose.
4. Rerun it if your prescriber holds a step, using the new date of the next increase as a fresh start date at the current dose. The planner cannot represent a hold directly; the workaround is honest and takes ten seconds.

Where the expectation text comes from

Every sentence in the rows traces to a label section or to one of the two pivotal trials. The steady-state weeks are from section 12.3 of each label (4 to 5 weeks for semaglutide, 4 weeks for tirzepatide). The side-effect timing statements are from section 6.1. The weight-change statements refer to Figure 1 of the STEP 1 and SURMOUNT-1 papers and say only what the figures show: separation from placebo at the first visit and a continuing slope through escalation. The when weight change starts page explains why the planner does not print week-by-week percentages.

If you are on a compounded product

Compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide have no FDA label, are not FDA approved, and are not interchangeable with the brand products. The planner shows the brand schedules for orientation because they are the only published ones. Your prescriber's schedule governs; if it moves faster than the label ladder, that is worth a direct question, because FDA's page on unapproved GLP-1 products describes adverse events associated with faster-than-label escalation of compounded products.

Companion pages

Your first injection for the day itself. Weeks 1 to 4, 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 for the stretches. For dates beyond week 20, the molecule-specific planners on Semaglutide Hub and Tirzepatide Hub go all the way to maintenance.