Please don't do it.. my closest friend does it and she became addicted to it. You might get to the point where you'll feel like you can't go without doing it in the fear that you'll look bad. Even in small amounts it can have a great psychological effect on you. It might not just be once or twice a week. Since you put it as a lazy (but dangerous) solution you might get too lazy and just end up doing that instead. Long story short, you can easily become addicted to doing it and it can have horrible psychological effects. I love my friend a lot and seeing how much she hates it yet that she feels she needs to do it is horrible. For the record, i also run 4 miles daily, sometimes more and my shape is improving. There's no need to do more than that until your shape improves to the point where you can push yourself to do more. I can do much more than 4 miles but 4 miles daily is good enough to slowly improve yourself while not putting too much stress on your body.