If you searched for a “dosing chart,” this page will not give you one. It explains the words on the plan your prescriber handed you, why those plans are shaped the way they are, and how to enter yours into STACK exactly as written. The amounts belong to your prescriber.

The terms

Titration means adjusting a dose in steps, watching response and tolerability at each one, rather than starting at the final amount. The Wegovy label uses the verb directly, describing “titrating” through its schedule to reach the maintenance dosage [1].

Initiation is the first step. Labels treat it as its own phase: Wegovy’s dosing section is titled “Recommended Dosage Initiation and Escalation Schedule” [1].

Escalation (or “step-up”) is each increase after the first step. The Zepbound and Mounjaro labels say to “follow the dosage escalation below” [2][3], and the Wegovy label organizes its table into initiation rows, escalation rows, and a maintenance row [1].

Step is one rung of the ladder: an amount, plus how long you stay there before the next change. Labels define each rung by a range of treatment weeks [1].

Maintenance is the level you stay at once escalation is finished. Each label has a separate “Recommended Maintenance Dosage” section, and each says to consider “treatment response and tolerability when selecting the maintenance dosage” [1][2]. Zepbound’s label adds that if a maintenance level is not tolerated, a lower one can be considered [2].

Hold or delay means staying on the current step longer. The Wegovy label says that if a step is not tolerated, escalation can be delayed [1].

Why GLP-1 plans step up

The labels give one reason, and they give it consistently: gastrointestinal tolerability. Wegovy: follow the escalation schedule “to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions” [1]. Zepbound and Mounjaro: “Follow the dosage escalation below to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions” [2][3]. The adverse-reaction data explain why. Across the semaglutide and tirzepatide trials, “the majority of reports of nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea occurred during dose escalation” and, in the tirzepatide labels, “decreased over time” [2][3][4].

Each label lays out a stepwise schedule over several weeks, with a fixed number of weeks at each step before the next increase [1][2][3]. The amounts in those tables are specific to one approved product and are not reproduced here; they are not the amounts on a compounded prescription, and they are not a plan for you. Your prescriber’s schedule may follow the label closely or may not, and the label itself says to consider “treatment response and tolerability” [1][2].

There is also a pharmacokinetic reason the steps are spaced out. A level does not settle at a new plateau immediately after a change. With repeated doses, accumulation reaches about half of steady state after one half-life, 75% after two, and close to steady state after four [5]. For a compound with a half-life near a week, that means several weeks per step before the body has “seen” the full effect of that step. STACK’s estimated level curve makes this visible: after each step-up, the curve ramps for a few half-lives before it flattens.

A practical note from the tirzepatide labels: they advise people using oral hormonal contraceptives to talk to their prescriber about a non-oral or backup method for 4 weeks after initiation and after each escalation [2][3]. That is one example of why your prescriber, not a chart, should be the one setting each step.

About charts you find online

Searches for “tirzepatide dosing chart” and “retatrutide dosing” return many tables. The only authoritative table for tirzepatide is the FDA label for the product you were prescribed [2][3]. Retatrutide has no FDA label; the published human data is from clinical trials, such as the 2023 phase 2 obesity trial in the New England Journal of Medicine [6], and STACK found no FDA-approved retatrutide product as of Sep 24 2026. A chart for an investigational compound is someone’s extrapolation, not a label. If a chart disagrees with what your prescriber wrote, the prescriber wins; if you are unsure why, ask them.

How to record your plan in STACK

STACK stores a titration schedule as a list of steps, entered exactly as your prescriber wrote them. For each step:

Amount and unit — copy the number and the unit (mg or mcg) verbatim.
Frequency — once weekly, daily, or whatever was written.
Start date and either an end date or a duration in weeks.
Notes — anything the prescriber added, such as “hold here if nausea” or “call before moving up.”

STACK then shows the plan next to your logged doses and the estimated level curve, so you can see whether what you logged matches what was planned. It flags a logged dose that does not match the current step so you can check your entry. It does not calculate the next step, suggest an increase, or fill in a step you have not been given. If your prescriber changes the plan, edit the schedule to match the new instruction and keep the old version in the history.

If you are unsure

If anything about the plan is unclear — which step you are on, when it changes, what “hold” means for you, or what to do about side effects — call your prescriber. That is also the answer if your pharmacy label and your prescriber’s note disagree. STACK shows; it does not prescribe.

Try it: Titration planner

Enter the titration your prescriber gave you and see it as a week-by-week table with the estimated curve laid over it. Printable and shareable. It never proposes a dose or a step.

Open the titration planner Open STACK on the web

More free tools

Sources

Every URL below was fetched and checked on 2026-09-24. Bracketed numbers in the text link here.

Understanding a titration schedule