Seriously, what the hell do they mean? I've just been ignoring them and I get the impression I shouldn't be.

bump

Total amount of calories eaten, minus calories burned through exercise.

The calorie goal on MFP is meant to be your net goal. For example, let's say your goal is 1500 calories a day:

You eat 1500 calories.
You exercise and burn off 500 calories.
That leaves you with a net of only 1000 for the day. So the idea is that you would eat another 500 calories to make up for the extra ones that you burned off.

I am pretty sure that it is calories in from eating minus calories out from exercising. My target net calories is 1200 daily so I "earn" calories to eat by working out and burning calories, so i normally eat closer to 1400-1600 calories each day. I have seen varying opinions about eating back your calories from exercise but i tend to eat quite a bit of mine back. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the explanation, all. I was wondering the same.

Is there a way to change this setting? My calorie goal is my calorie goal - I don't want my exercise calories added back into my calorie allowance for the day. I can't seem to find a to change this. Anyone else?

It's not a setting you can change.

It's not a setting you can change, but you can just look at your calorie total as opposed to your goal (if you know your goal i.e. 1200 calories) in your food diary.