Yes, of course it does. Any form of exercise helps you lose weight, and this is accomplished by at least three factors.
1. Physical activity burns more calories than a body at rest. You burn calories as energy to fuel the physical activity. The amount of energy burned depends on the size of the muscles involved.
Rowing and swimming use more total muscles than running and walking, and burns more energy. Cycling uses even less than running and walking and will burn fewer calories for the same amount of time exercising.
Interestingly, the expenditure of energy while running is based on the weight carried over a specific distance, with the speed of little significance. Therefore you burn virtually the same number of calories while walking a mile as you do running that same mile. Of course you will likely run faster than you walk, so your calories burned per minute of exercise will be higher while running.
2. Exercise boosts your base rate of metabolism after you finish, as part of the process of rebuilding muscle and connective tissue stressed by the activity. When you perform low-impact exercise such as walking or jogging slowly your metabolism will be raised for a few hours. If you perform high intensity exercise that taxes the system, such as sprinting or very fast running, your metabolism is raised for as much as a day or two following the activity.
Running fast does nothing to burn up more calories during the actual exercise than slow running, but the benefits of the faster running are realized after the run in the form of an elevated metabolism that continues to burn more calories per hour over a longer period of time than if you ran the same miles more slowly.
3. Muscle burns calories, fat does not. The more muscle you have, the more calories per day your body burns, even while sedentary.
High intensity exercise builds muscle. Low intensity exercise burns fat, and often some muscle, too. Running in short, fast busts of speed sends a message to your body to build more muscle. Regular easy running of 20-30 minutes or more will gradually decrease the amount of muscle mass in your body, while it also reduces your body fat.
Long, slow running ultimately produces a skinny body. To create a lean, muscled body, you need to frequently add in high intensity sessions of sprint intervals. By doing this you build more muscle, and you raise your basic rate of metabolism, not just for the period of recovery after the exercise, but for as long as you have the additional muscle.
All running will help you lose weight, but the type of running you do will determine whether you build muscle to replace fat, or simply burn away pounds of fat and muscle to become skinnier.
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