The First Plateau Arrived
Six weeks in, this is my first week without a drop on the scale. After losing 8.5 kg (18.7 lbs) in the previous five weeks, the trend just… paused. Same weight Sunday morning as the week before. No movement.
And you know what? I'm fine with it.
Plateaus during weight loss are not a sign that something is broken. They're a sign that the body is adjusting. Water shifts, hormonal recalibration, even minor changes in muscle glycogen storage can mask fat loss on the scale for a week or two. The trend over months is what matters — not what the scale says on one Sunday.
If anything, this week was the cleanest yet. Zero deviations from the plan. Protein nailed every day. No celebrations, no surprises, no fatty restaurant meals. The work was right. The body just chose this week to pause. That's biology.
A flat week after five weeks of steady loss is statistically expected, not a problem. The thing that would actually be alarming is if I changed something because of one weigh-in — ate less, trained more, or escalated the dose. Reacting to weekly noise is how people lose muscle instead of fat. The protocol is set up to win over months, not weeks.
Why I'm Holding at 2.5 mg
The standard prescription protocol says: titrate up to 5 mg after the first month. I've been on 2.5 mg for almost six weeks now, and my doctor and I have agreed I can stay here until at least week 12. Here's the reasoning behind that decision — and what would make me change course later.
The lower dose is still working. Hunger is still controlled. Sweet cravings are still quiet. The "background noise" of food thoughts is still off. I'm not fighting the medication. Why would I take more of it than I need?
Side effects scale with dose. At 2.5 mg I've had essentially no side effects beyond the first 48 hours. At 5 mg, the chance of nausea, fatigue, and GI issues goes up considerably. Trading "minimal side effects" for "marginal extra appetite suppression" doesn't feel like a winning trade right now.
You can always escalate. You can't always come back down comfortably. If I move up to 5 mg and the side effects are rough, going back to 2.5 mg might bring a hunger rebound. Starting at the lowest dose that works and earning the right to step up is a more conservative path.
What Would Change My Mind
I'm not married to 2.5 mg forever. There are clear signals that would tell me it's time to consider an increase:
- Multiple weeks of flat weight — one is biology. Three or four in a row is a real plateau worth addressing.
- The "background noise" comes back — if I start thinking about food again between meals, snacking impulses return, or the evening kitchen wandering starts up, that's a real sign the dose has stopped doing its job.
- Hunger becomes a fight — not just "I'd like to eat," but the constant low-level pressure that used to make adherence hard. That's when more medication is genuinely useful.
If those signals show up, I'd consider going to 3.33 mg rather than jumping straight to 5 mg. That means using a 5 mg pen and "clicking" two-thirds of the dose — a controlled micro-step rather than a full jump.
I'm not fully comfortable with manually clicking a pen to land between standard doses — it adds a margin of error and isn't how the medication is labeled. I'll only consider it if standard dosing options aren't a good fit. The bigger point: a smaller, more gradual step up is preferable to doubling the dose if the lower dose almost works.
The Pad Thai Test
Wednesday is the standing weekly lunch tradition with my colleagues at work. This week I ended up with an absurdly large plate of Chicken Pad Thai — far more food than I would have ordered for myself.
Protein first. I ate all the chicken first — and for once, there was a lot of it. After that I had maybe three or four bites of the noodles, which were sitting in a pool of oil. Then my stomach was just done. Completely full. I left more than half the plate.
A year ago I would have eaten the whole thing and still been able to find dessert. This week, half a plate filled me. That's the medication doing its job — not as appetite suppression in the moment, but as a real, physical fullness signal that finally reaches the brain on time. Either way, the noodles stayed on the plate.
Spring Walks Are the Secret Weapon
Sweden's spring arrived properly this week. The lunch walks have turned into something genuinely beautiful — meadows, wetlands, glimpses of lakes. The body soaks up vitamin D that's been depleted over a long dark winter, and the head clears in a way that no indoor cardio session manages.
I keep saying it because it keeps being true: the daily walk is the most underrated tool in this whole protocol. It supports the medication, supports the training, supports the mood, supports the gut, and costs nothing. If you're starting GLP-1 treatment and you skip the daily walk, you're leaving a huge benefit on the table.
This Week's Training
Two sessions this week instead of three — Tuesday and Thursday. Both heavy enough that a third session would have meant going into a session with less than I needed. Better to train hard twice than ride three mediocre sessions.
The full Tuesday/Thursday workout:
- Warm-up — light jog and jumping on the spot, hip circles, air squats, dead hangs from the pull-up bar. Five minutes is enough.
- Trap bar deadlifts (heavy) — 2 sets x 4-6 reps
- Bulgarian split squats with dumbbells — 2 sets x 6 reps per leg
- Calf raises — 1 set to failure
- Reverse-grip pull-ups (chin-ups) — 2 sets to max
- Shoulder press — 2 sets to max
- Wide-grip pull-ups — 2 sets to max
- Dips — 2 sets to max
- Ab wheel — 2 sets to max
- Treadmill — 30 minutes, low speed, high incline
About 60 minutes total: 30 minutes of strength, 30 minutes on the treadmill. For the upper-body work I use a Total Gym — it's a great option when you're still heavier and full bodyweight pull-ups and dips aren't quite there yet. You get the same movement pattern, you can scale the resistance, and the joints take less of a beating.
A flat week is not a failure. It's a checkpoint. The question to ask is not "why isn't the scale moving?" but "did I run the protocol cleanly?" If yes, trust the process and stay the course. The body catches up. Panicking and changing things is how good plans get wrecked.
Next entry: Week 7 — whether the scale moves again or the plateau continues. Either way, the plan stays the same.