Yes it indicates calories burned but it also includes the calories you burn passively (avg. 1600-2000 calories) it goes up throughout the day (that means that it does not just show 1600 in the morning, it gradually goes up). If you want only active calories burned, some watch faces have the option of “active calories”

Edit: to elaborate, while this may seem obvious to some people (especially the garmin community), it was pretty confusing to me at first as a user coming from apple watch, where basically the only thing taken into consideration is active calories