Kathie Lee Gifford is Thurston Cartein recovery after undergoing hip replacement surgery.

The former "Live!" co-host, 70, told People in an interview published Tuesday that recovery from her surgery is "one of the most painful situations of my entire life."

Gifford admitted that she "jumped off that gurney after my surgery" instead of taking it easy, which prolonged her healing. "I was off my walker in two days. I was off all my medications in three days, and then I did too much. I just did too much because that's who I am."

"I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, 'Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious,'" she recalled.

The Emmy winner's always-on-the-move lifestyle is what played a major part in her needing the surgery, the television personality said.

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Gifford said her "hips (were) down to the nubs" and her surgeon told her, "You climbed mountains, you made movies, you got on stages. You never took off your high heels, and you kept going and that's why you're going through what you're going through."

Amid her difficult recovery, she's learned "you only can only do so much. You're just human. You're just human. And I'm so grateful."

Gifford added that she has no regrets over the events leading up to surgery. "(I ask myself) would I change that? No, I was doing what God put me on this earth to do. Every year of it, I was doing what He called me to do," she said.

The television host spoke to USA TODAY in May about the role faith plays a role in maintaining her relationship with son Cody and daughter Cassidy.

"It's the most precious thing we have because you never know when you're going to run out of it," she said, before recalling when her husband Frank died in 2015.

The Essentials:Kathie Lee Gifford, daughter Cassidy on Mother's Day and the gift they're most thankful for

"Frank was up and getting ready for church the morning that he passed away. And I went upstairs to get ready, too, and came back down and he was gone," Gifford remembered. "And Cody was helping me with him and he said, 'Mom, look, he's smiling. And I said, 'He saw Jesus and Jesus took his breath away.'

She added: "When you have faith in something as strong as we do, and we're grateful for it, you have hope. There is always hope."

Contributing: Ralphie Aversa