Saxenda dosing: the daily titration schedule, simply

The titration schedule

Saxenda climbs to its maintenance dose over five weeks, raising by 0.6 mg each week so your gut can adapt (the same logic behind every GLP-1 ladder). The standard schedule:

• Week 1: 0.6 mg daily
• Week 2: 1.2 mg daily
• Week 3: 1.8 mg daily
• Week 4: 2.4 mg daily
• Week 5 onward: 3.0 mg daily (the maintenance dose)

If a step is rough, prescribers sometimes hold it an extra week before climbing, exactly as with the weekly drugs. The first-week starter dose is intentionally low and not meant to drive weight loss; it is teaching your body the medication. Our Saxenda guide covers the side effects that cluster in these escalation weeks.

How and when to take it

Saxenda is injected once a day, at any time you choose, with or without food. Unlike oral semaglutide there is no empty-stomach ritual and no fixed clock; the only rule that matters is consistency, so pick a daily time you will remember and anchor it to a routine.

Injection technique is the class standard: subcutaneous into the abdomen, thigh, or upper arm, rotating the exact spot each day to avoid soreness and lumps (our injection sites guide maps rotation). Let a fridge-cold pen warm briefly to reduce sting, and log the daily dose so a missed day is obvious.

The missed-dose rule

Daily dosing plus a short 13-hour half-life makes this simple. If you miss a dose, skip it and take your next dose at the usual time the following day. Do not take an extra dose or increase the next one to make up for it.

The one exception: if you have missed more than three days in a row, the drug has largely cleared and your gut has lost some adaptation, so restarting at the full 3 mg can bring back early side effects. Contact your prescriber, who may have you restart the titration from a lower step to ease back in. The missed-dose post covers the pharmacology behind this.

Timing side effects to your advantage

A daily drug gives you a small lever the weekly ones do not: because effects follow each day's dose, you can experiment with dose timing (morning versus evening) to put any peak queasiness where it disrupts least. Log the time you inject and how you feel afterward, and within a week or two in DoseLog your best timing becomes clear. The timing post covers the general principle.