‘To be too fat is not very good for spiritually advanced life. Rather, one should reduce because if one becomes fat it is an impediment to progress in spiritual understanding. One should be careful not to eat too much, sleep too much or remain in a comfortable position. Voluntarily accepting some penances and difficulties, one should take less food and less sleep. These are the procedures for practicing any kind of yoga, whether bhakti-yoga, jnana-yoga or hatha-yoga.”

SB 3.33.15

Scientists have confirmed that what is good for your spiritual life is also good for your physical body. Note that they come to a rather strange conclusion though — instead of encouraging sense control, “Understanding how the process works at the cellular level in rodents could help scientists develop drugs that mimic the process in humans, Leeuwenburgh added they want to make a drug to get the same benefit.”

Then you could have the benefits of not eating your cake, and eat it anyway.

Scientists reveal how caloric restriction extends life by reducing toxic trash

“Reduce, recycle and rebuild is as important to the most basic component of the human body, the cell, as it is to the environment. And a University of Florida study shows just how much the body benefits when it “goes green,” at least if you’re a rat: Cutting calories helps rodents live longer by boosting cells’ ability to recycle damaged parts so they can maintain efficient energy production.

“ ‘Caloric restriction is a way to extend life in animals. If you give them less food, the stress of this healthy habit actually makes them live longer,’ said Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, chief of the division of biology of aging in UF’s Institute on Aging. Understanding how the process works at the cellular level in rodents could help scientists develop drugs that mimic the process in humans, Leeuwenburgh added.

“How does it work? During the aging process, free radicals – highly reactive byproducts of our cells’ respiration – wreak havoc on our cellular machinery. Mitochondria, the tiny power plants that keep a cell functioning, are especially vulnerable to this type of damage. The effects can be disastrous – if malfunctioning mitochondria aren’t removed, they begin to spew out suicidal proteins that prompt the entire cell to die. Cell death, on a whole-body scale, is what aging is all about.

“Fortunately, younger cells are adept at reducing, recycling and rebuilding. In this process, damaged mitochondria are quickly swallowed up and degraded. The broken down pieces are then recycled and used to build new mitochondria. However, older cells are less adept at this process, so damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate and contribute to aging.

“ ‘Cell survival is dependent upon the ability of the cell to reduce and recycle by a mechanism called autophagy,’ said William Dunn Jr., a professor of anatomy and cell biology in UF’s College of Medicine and senior author of the study, which was published online this month in the journal Rejuvenation Research. ‘When a cell is under stress, autophagy is turned on to clean up the cell by removing damaged cellular components, while recycling building blocks necessary to rebuild the cell. It’s there to protect the cell. But in aged cells, they’re basically not able to adjust to stress as well. ‘ …”