The will power gym

Happy Easter everyone!

I have celebrated this weekend in the time honoured fashion by eating vast amounts of chocolate. And the brown stuff was all the sweeter because I had given it up (and cakes and sweets and biscuits) for Lent.

Despite my athiesm I tend to give something up for Lent every year, and I've only just started wondering why.

It seems like a good excuse to stop eating something I eat too much of already, and it's time delimited exercise in self-control. But why do I need to exercise my self control? And does it improve with exercise?