Of course, but if you're eating potato chips and bacon for breakfast, fried chicken and pizza for lunch with coke, instant noodles with a cheese cake at night, then you aren't going to be losing weight. My point is that with a balanced diet, reducing the proportions of what is consumed will be beneficial to weight loss, and is more effective than just cardiovascular exercises or resistance training. It's not necessary to count the calories to achieve a deficit in caloric intake, but each item that goes into your mouth is a potential energy source you have to burn via running- but you only have so much vitality before you collapse. So I rank, in order of importance, eating less (but nutritious, less carbohydrates, maybe you can check out some vitamins to supplement your diet?) > resistance training (building more muscles allows you to burn more energy) > cardiovascular activity (pure running) in order of effectiveness in losing weight. Optimally, you could combine all three to achieve maximum results in the shortest time. That is my opinion.
You're right: this is the exact order they stand in in terms of weight loss. You can still build muscles while being fat, though, so if your point is muscles rather than weight loss, the priority list changes. Even then, I'd argue that eating healthy is important. If you care about the muscles you have but not the beer belly or fat pockets, why do you do it anyway? Caring about oneself is not a selective activity: if you opt to care - care for the whole thing, or you're already failing yourself more than you can repair for.