The GLP-1 Shot Day Checklist: A 5-Minute Weekly Routine

Once-weekly medication sounds easy until you’re standing in the kitchen on a Tuesday wondering: did I inject last Sunday or the Sunday before? Left side or right side? A weekly drug means your memory only gets 52 practice reps a year — which is exactly why shot day works better as a small fixed ritual than as 52 individual acts of remembering.

Here’s a checklist that takes about five minutes and produces, as a side effect, the exact record your prescriber wants to see at every appointment.

Before you inject: the 60-second setup

Check the pen. Take it from the fridge and confirm two things: the liquid is clear and colorless (cloudy or particled = don’t use it, call the pharmacy), and it’s the dose you’re supposed to be on — an easy mistake during titration months when two strengths may be in the fridge at once.

Room temperature is fine. Manufacturers allow letting the pen sit out briefly; a cold injection stings more. Check your pen’s specific guidance — unopened Wegovy and Zepbound pens also tolerate limited time outside refrigeration, which matters for travel.

Pick this week’s site. Abdomen (keep about two inches clear of the navel), front of the thigh, or back of the upper arm. The one rule: not the exact spot you used last week. See injection site rotation for why — the short version is that repeated same-spot injections can cause irritation and firm lumps that absorb medication less predictably.

The injection itself

Follow the instructions for your pen — Wegovy and Zepbound pens are single-use autoinjectors with hidden needles, while Ozempic and Mounjaro pens differ in handling. Universal points:

• Clean skin, let any alcohol dry (wet alcohol = sting).
• Press at 90 degrees, hold until the pen confirms completion (click pattern or window indicator, per your pen’s instructions).
• Needle goes in a sharps container, not the trash. A rigid laundry-detergent bottle is the classic improvised version; pharmacies sell real ones for a few dollars.

The part everyone skips: log it now

The whole value of shot day concentrates in the ninety seconds after the injection. Log four things before you leave the room, because “I’ll do it later” is how three-week gaps appear in every record:

1. Dose and date — the foundation. Titration decisions, insurance paperwork, and every “when did you start 1.7?” question draw on this.
2. Injection site — so next week’s rotation is a lookup, not a guess.
3. Weight — one weigh-in a week, same scale, same conditions, is enough to draw a real trend. (More is fine if the daily noise doesn’t mess with your head — see why plateaus and fluctuations aren’t the same thing.)
4. The week in one line — worst side effect, and whether hunger or food noise came back before the next shot. “Nausea Mon–Tue, hungry again by Friday” is a genuinely useful clinical data point about whether your dose is holding the full week.

This is precisely the loop Glu is built around — dose, site, weight, and symptoms in one tap-through on shot day — but the routine matters more than the tool. A paper card on the fridge beats an app you don’t open.

Common shot day questions

What if shot day falls on a trip?

Unopened pens handle travel well within their out-of-fridge limits (check your medication’s specifics — for most weekly GLP-1 pens it’s measured in weeks, not hours). Keep pens in carry-on, never checked luggage (cargo holds freeze), and keep them in original labeled packaging for security.

Can I move my shot day?

Yes, within limits — labels generally require a minimum gap between doses (for Wegovy, at least 48 hours). The clean method is shifting one or two days per week until you land on the day you want. Confirm the plan with your pharmacist or prescriber first.

What if I forgot whether I already injected?

This is the question the log exists to answer. If you’re genuinely unsure and have no record, call your pharmacist rather than guessing — a doubled dose is a rough week. Then start logging at injection time, so the question can never come up again. If you’ve actually missed a dose, the labels have specific windows — we’ve collected them in the missed-dose guide.

Sources: Wegovy prescribing information (Novo Nordisk); Zepbound prescribing information (Eli Lilly); FDA guidance on safe sharps disposal.