How to keep a GLP-1 injection log that actually helps

A weekly shot sounds like the easiest thing in the world to remember. It happens once, on the same day, at roughly the same time. And yet almost everyone on a weekly GLP-1 medicine, whether that's semaglutide (Ozempic®, Wegovy®) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro®, Zepbound®), has stood in the kitchen at some point and wondered: did I already do this week's?

A short, honest log answers that question in a second. It also answers the ones your prescriber asks, the ones you ask yourself three months in, and the ones that come up when something feels different. This guide covers what's worth writing down, what isn't, and how to keep the habit going without it becoming a chore.

Why a weekly dose is easy to lose track of

Daily habits stick because they repeat often enough to become automatic. A weekly one doesn't get that chance. Seven days is long enough for a week to blur into the next, especially around holidays, travel or a busy stretch at work. "Was that last Thursday, or the Thursday before?" is a normal question, not a failing.

A weekly rhythm also hides small drifts. Taking it a day late once, then again, can quietly move your dose day without you deciding to. A log makes those drifts visible, so you can talk them through with your prescriber or pharmacist rather than guess.

The five things worth writing down

You don't need a diary. Five small facts cover nearly everything a log is for.

1. When you took it. The date and the rough time. If it was a different day from usual, that's worth a word too.
2. The dose, exactly as prescribed. Write it the way your prescription and your pen or vial show it, in the same unit. A log is a record, not a calculator, so it should never convert between units. If a number ever looks wrong to you, that's a question for your pharmacist.
3. Where you injected. Abdomen, thigh or upper arm, and which side. This is what makes rotating sites easy (more on that in our guide to injection site rotation).
4. Which pen or pack it came from. Handy when you're working out when you'll need the next one. Our guide to tracking doses left in a pen goes further.
5. A short note, only if something was different. Late, early, a new pen, a different time zone, something you noticed afterwards. Most weeks this stays empty, and that's fine.

What you can leave out

The quickest way to abandon a log is to make it too big. You don't need to rate your mood every day, weigh every meal or write paragraphs. If you'd like to track side effects or appetite, keep those as separate, equally small check-ins. Our side effect journal guide shows a way to do it in a few taps a day.

A log you keep for a year beats a perfect one you keep for a week.

Make it a ten-second habit

The best time to log a dose is the moment you take it. Later, the details soften. A few things help:

• Log in the same place you inject. If your pen lives in the fridge door, your log should be one step away, on your phone or on a card stuck to the fridge.
• Pair it with something you already do. Logging straight after you cap the pen, or right before you put the kettle on, ties the new step to an old one.
• Let a reminder do the remembering. A reminder on dose day takes the load off your memory. Choose one that doesn't print your medicine's name on your lock screen. We wrote about reminders that stay private.
• Don't backfill from memory. If you missed logging one, add it with a note saying it was added later. An honest gap is more useful than a guessed entry.

What a good log looks like after three months

After twelve or so weeks, a simple log tells a story without you having to remember it:

• Every dose with its day and time, so the rhythm (and any drift) is plain.
• Every dose change, on the date it happened, as your prescriber set it.
• A tidy rotation of sites, without one spot doing all the work.
• A handful of short notes that explain the odd weeks.

That's exactly the picture a prescriber, nurse or pharmacist needs, and it's far more reliable than reconstructing it in the appointment. Our appointment checklist shows how to bring it along.

Paper, spreadsheet or app?

All three work. What matters is that the log is always with you, quick to fill in, private, and easy to share when you choose to.

• Paper is private and simple, but easy to lose and hard to search.
• A spreadsheet is flexible and exportable, but fiddly on a phone at the moment you inject.
• An app can do the remembering, choose the next site and count your pen, as long as it keeps your data on your phone and lets you export it.

Hushweek was built for this one job. Logging a dose takes two taps, with your dose, the time and the site that has rested longest already filled in; doses are kept exactly as written, never converted; a dose logged wrongly can be corrected from History or that day's page; and the whole history exports to CSV for free. No account is needed, and without one everything stays on your phone.

Questions people ask