Sensory Pleasure as a Hindrance on the Path I recall reading, though I do not remember where, that jains and buddhists refrain from masturbation because it could cancel/hinder their spiritual progress. I somewhat wonder: 

Does engaging in coarse pleasures as gluttonous eating or sexuality actively undo spiritual progress and virtue, or does it merely consist as a distraction and waste of time? 

Thank you
The mind is an organ of habits and reactions. Those habits and reactions appear after sense contact, and it is based on the before learnt patterns of the mind. In turn, those patterns become ingrained due to repeated intentional behavior.

What I just mentioned is a -shallow- summary of kamma (intentional deeds) and the effect on the mind, in short and long term. 

It's hard to know when will the mind establish a pattern, and when that pattern will become an habitual tendency, which is the source of habitual reactions and responses.

The mind is like a glass of water, but we don't know how filled it is. That's why we should be wise, prudent and cautious, because we don't know how much water does it take to overflow that glass; maybe it takes a lot of it, or maybe a few drops. 

We don't know when our past actions will gave fruition to their consequences. We don't know exactly how the past kamma has influenced our minds and our habits/responses. We don't know for sure how will a new act affect our past kammic story.

In the Dvedhavitakka Sutta, it is said:


  "Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking &amp; pondering, that
  becomes the inclination of his awareness. If a monk keeps pursuing
  thinking imbued with sensuality, abandoning thinking imbued with
  renunciation, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with
  sensuality. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with ill will,
  abandoning thinking imbued with non-ill will, his mind is bent by that
  thinking imbued with ill will. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking
  imbued with harmfulness, abandoning thinking imbued with harmlessness,
  his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with harmfulness."


https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.019.than.html

Have a wonderful day!