Does exercise actually, literally, burn calories? As in, if you over indulge with your calories, can you counter that out by exercising more?

Exercise burns cals, yes. Try not to rely on calorie counters on gym equipment, they are often incorrect. Shape magazine (online) has a decent calorie calculator (google "shape magazine calorie burn" and it should come up). For example, walking 2mph for 30 minutes is about 100 calories for your weight. Bump it up to 3mph and it's 150 cals.

...it's gonna be a very long walk if you try to burn off that whole caramel bar.

Yes (and no!)

Exercise DOES burn calories. That said, it doesn't burn as many as you might think. So while you can exercise and burn, say, 200-300 calories, that barely covers an order of fries at a fast food restaurant. Or as Nelie's signature says, you can't out-exercise poor eating habits.

You can exercise more, but... sometimes reasonably it takes waaaaaay too much exercise to make up for some calorie bombs. Maybe just add an extra half hour for a day or two. Please don't go into an extreme way of life where you exercise 6 hours to make up for a cupcake.

Thanks all. I guess that caramel bar is just going to have to stay with me then

You probably won't burn off the entire calorie mishap, but don't feel like it doesn't count to try at all! Even just burning off an extra 100-200 calories can make a difference. And a workout could even help lift your mood. =)

Okay, so what if I did a killer workout and burned all of the calories in the caramel bar. (Theoretically) Does it really even out? I always wondered the same thing.

I don't do this intentionally. (Actually I do the opposite - I don't adjust for exercise.) It just goes along with the whole calories in/calories out thing. I can calculate how many calories my defecit was for the week, but weight loss is always different.

I just can't see how someone could eat a ton, exercise away the calories and lose weight (again assuming theoreticaly that the calories equaled a net of zero).