My 9yo son has insulin resistance and his BMI for age dances between the 96th and 99th percentile. He has just started taking a very low dose of metformin. I wanted to share a couple of things that have helped us, motivated by some comments I saw in the Post Breakfast Highs post. Our experiences may be of limited value to others because of age differences and because my son doesn't have Type 1, but here goes.

1. Breakfast. I have stopped purchasing cereal, and other family members have understood the importance of this and are cooperating fully. (They didn't cooperate at first but now thank goodness they've understood.) We discovered that Go Lean Crunch, despite the impressive nutrition facts on the label, just don't work for my son.

He has a list on the refrigerator of menu ideas, including baby carrots dipped in fat-free hummus, scrambled eggs, boiled egg, tofu-kan sticks, cashews, mini-shishkebabs made with toothpicks, seitan and turkey pepperoni, salad with chicken cubes.

He likes to nose around the health food store reading labels. He likes to find things like pretend sausage, pretend baby ribs, etc., and suggest that we buy them by showing me how low they are on fat and carbs and how high they are in protein.

His favorite thing to do for breakfast at the moment is to put on his yellow apron that he got for his birthday and fry some pseudo sausages. They're made from seitan and textured soy protein. He enjoys being creative in the kitchen and trying different combinations. Once he tried to brag to me about what a good cook he is, only he got his tongue a little twisted and it came out like this: "Mama, I'm a gourmet fish!" (Of course he meant chef.)

2. Ice cream. We buy Stonyfield frozen yogurt and use very small servings. I just don't think it's fair for siblings to be able to eat normal ice cream. I would not buy any.

3. I would suggest that five-year-olds need to have something to eat at least every three hours, regardless of their glucose metabolism. At pre-school there should be a staff person or volunteer who will serve a healthy snack for all the children, for example mid-morning, at a predictable, regular time.

I want to learn to bake some low-carb treats so we can deal with the problem of my son feeling left out when his peers are doing things like a Bake Sale.

Anyone else out there dealing with insulin resistance or obesity or diabetes prevention or treatment with metformin?