What does hunger feel like?

People today seem to be in a constant state of disconnect with their bodies.  Women, especially, seem to be at war with themselves, either fighting off the signs of aging, squishing themselves into tight fitting clothing to look sexy, or starving themselves and trying with all their might to ignore the hunger pains that follow.  Most of us have gotten to a point where we can't hear what our bodies are trying to tell us anymore, and I feel like this is a major cause of problems.

I'm not immune to this, by any means.  After years of binge eating (when I was always eating and never hungry), followed by about two years of on-again-off-again low calorie dieting (when I was constantly hungry, even after eating), I've lost the ability to really tell when I'm hungry.  Really, truly hungry. 

Theoretically, I know what hunger feels like.  It's an emptiness in the stomach, a grumbling, and just a desire to eat.  I do feel those feelings sometimes, but not always.  Most of the time, I get a different feeling.  A kind of cramping, a feeling in my throat, that almost reminds me of heartburn but not really.  It's all really confusing, because this feeling sometimes happens when I'm really hungry, and sometimes I eat when I feel that way and I find out that I was already full and eating was a bad idea.

I'm still learning.  I've been eating a whole food, low-carb diet now for four or five months now, but I haven't gotten it tweaked to be perfect for me yet.  It doesn't help that I've been backsliding about once a week since Christmas, and eating something sugary or full of wheat.  I feel like I'm tripping myself up, and that's why I'm having such trouble reading my own body. 

My strategy is to drink a glass of water every time I feel that strange cramping feeling.  Water's good for me anyway, and it'll help gauge if I'm actually hungry or not.  If I'm not hungry, then I'm just going to wait it out.  I feel like this is just my body getting adjusted to eating three meals a day, instead of lots of meals throughout the day.  I'm also going to seriously try to cut out the junk (even once a week is too much), so that my body can become fully adapted to my low-carb lifestyle.

Do you guys ever feel disconnected to your body, or have trouble reading the signals it's giving you?