After all that Steven Lee Hall Jr. has been through over the past 16 months, the challenge of eating 4½ pounds of steak with a baked potato, shrimp cocktail, salad and roll should be - well, ain't no thing.

Plus he gets to do this with his clothes on.

"I'm used to starving and killing lizards to eat," Hall said, "so I'm pretty confident about this one."

Hall, 33, lives in Orlando, Fla., but has always claimed Amarillo as his hometown even after moving to Florida when he was 9 years old. He still has two cousins and his grandparents, Stanley and Lynette Green, who live here.

Hall is returning to Amarillo, the first time in six years, to take The Big Texan Steak Ranch's 72-ounce steak challenge on Tuesday while using the time to raise money and awareness for breast cancer.

It's just one more challenge in a life full of them.

"Everything is a challenge for him," said Monica Green, his cousin. "Steven's always been like that."

Hall describes himself as a "professional artist and survivalist," and it's not bluster. He's been painting for a decade, mostly loud and bold portraits that he says "punch you in the face when you walk in the room."

As an artist, he goes by the pen name of Nevets Killjoy and signs his work as such. Nevets is Steven spelled backward. But Killjoy?

"That was kind of a word we made up when I was a kid playing near Westgate Mall," he said. "If something was really cool, we'd say, 'That's killjoy cool.'"

But he's made a more prominent niche as a survivalist - a very public survivalist, a very public naked survivalist. Hall has been featured twice in 2016 in the Discovery Channel's wildly popular and a little bizarre "Naked And Afraid" television series.

"I always love trying to accomplish things that are 'unaccomplishable,'" Hall said. "Nobody thinks you can survive 40 days in Africa and nobody thinks you can kill and eat a snake. Having an opportunity to take on a challenge like that is a blessing."

A blessing?

In July 2015, Hall and Chalese Meyer, 26, were plopped down, if not afraid, at least nekkid in the wilds of Alabama where for 21 days they confronted timber rattlesnakes, coyotes, spiders, and, of course, crazy rednecks. Hall lost 25 pounds off his 5-11, 180-pound frame.

That was just the warm-up for what awaited in South Africa in "Naked And Afraid XL" this past January - six men and six women for 40 days. It's not a reality show, but a documentary, and Hall was one of four who did not figuratively wave the white flag and survived the ordeal. Both series appeared on the Discovery Channel this summer.

"The biggest challenge is mental," said Hall, who lost 48 pounds in South Africa. "You need to prepare to fail and fail again. When you get a win, the wins are huge.

"The lows are low, and the highs are high. If you're not right in the head and start to doubt yourself, start thinking about home and real food and not have your head in the game - that's what breaks people down."

Amarillo left

an impression

Hall got an early outdoors start as a young boy in Amarillo when he would go with his cousins, uncle and grandfather in Amarillo to camp and fish near Cuchara, Colo. Even when he moved to Florida, he'd often return in the summer to meet with family and head for Colorado.

"Outdoors has always been a passion of mine," he said. "I was always that kid watching the Discovery Channel and taking notes."

Only later, Green said, did she see the outgoing Type-A personality from her cousin.

"When we were kids, he was just kind of this outdoorsy Boy Scout," she said. "He completely grew into this amazing person. He loves to be the center of attention.

"But he definitely got that afterward. It's so fun to watch him on TV. It's kind of the first time to really see that side of him."

A Big Texan steak challenge sounds delicious after killing and eating possum, and eating the beating heart of a 6-foot timber rattlesnake in Alabama. Between Alabama and Africa, Hall ate lizards, edible foliage, killed a puff adder snake, speared and ate talapia and large mouth bass. Bugs, though, he wouldn't touch.

South Africa presented its own challenges - first with the group dynamic of 12 and different personalities that pushed and pulled them, but it was also the wild.

At various times they were trailed by lions, surrounded at night by hyaenas. A leopard killed a warthog just a few yards away. They could have been next.

"We had danger in Africa every single day," he said. "Even the ground you walked on seemed like it had animosity toward you. It was the first time in my life I'd been in an environment where I wasn't the top predator. That will screw with your head a little bit."

Hall never applied to be on "Naked And Afraid." A bartender friend in Orlando was filmed for a Discovery show, and a producer asked him if he knew of anyone who liked to hunt, fish and build. He knew just the guy.

Hall flew to Los Angeles and within 15 minutes of talking to producers, his force of personality and skill set got him a spot on the documentary.

"I want to try to conquer the world," he said. "I want to try to change the world, and the way to do that is give it all I've got. Life is such an awesome blessing."

So, Steven, the question you're most often asked when you got home. Would it be, you know?

"Did anybody hook up? That's what everyone asks," he said. "The thing is, whether 21 or 40 days, your libido is completely turned off. You're completely disgusting. You have ticks under your eyelids.

"When you do bathe, it's in a watering hole that animals have been in. There's always stuff crawling over you. Your body undergoes this massive change, losing about a pound a day. No, no hooking up."

Jon Mark Beilue is an AGN Media columnist. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo.com or 806-345-3318. Follow him on Twitter:

@jonmarkbeilue.