How can i be sure that a VPN on VM is configured properly?

So i'm trying to setup a VPN on VM, for general browsing/torrenting and have host with real IP just for mail and other personal stuff. So i wanted to ask - i've installed W7 on VM and a VPN with firewall, network is set on NAT (though i don't have any router). Is this everything what i need? I tried checking on my host with wireshark packets from VM but it seems very mixed with my real IP and VPN's IP. Am i doing something wrong? What should i know before starting any real torrenting on VM? Or maybe i should do it the other way - VPN on my host and just have couple programs on VM for checking personal stuff and general chatting with my real IP. Would i then need to change network settings to bridged? Will this work or it will be less secure?

 

For that, you want the VPN running on the Windows 7 VM, with a firewall to prevent leaks. In the VM, you can check your IP address using <http://whatismyipaddress.com>, and check for DNS leaks using <http://www.grc.com/dns>.

Capturing with Wireshark in the host, you should see encrypted traffic between your ISP-assigned IP address and the VPN server IP address.

That would work. And yes, you would bridge the VM's network adapter to the host's adapter. With the VPN running on the host, the VM would behave like a separate computer. But I'm not sure whether it would work without a router running DHCP server, because the VM would need to get its own local IP address.

 

So basically if i see that my IP is changed and DNS is not leaking i'm all set in VM? I'm just kinda new to this so i just wanted to make sure. I have firewall installed there too. If with wireshark i'm doing a follow on TCP/UDP stream on packet and see nothing but gibberish my connection is encrypted? Maybe is there some phrazes i could check in that stream(like whats definitely should be there if connection wouldn't be encrypted?)? For now i'm capturing all packets from my network card, and it shows all traffic - from VM and from my host. How can i check that a packet sent from an my ISP IP is from my host or is from VM? I mean i see that there is constant traffic between my real IP and VPN IP, but how can i check that other traffic from my real IP is from host and not from VM? Is there something i can do for example, to check that my packets are encrypted and if something goes wrong and connection stops being encrypted that connection would be dropped?
Maybe for additional security in my host i could limit with my host firewall that my VM would only would be let to connect just to VPNs IP? If something goes wrong or VPN somehow disconnects in VM then virtualbox would just not be able to connect anywhere with my real IP. Would that work? Is there some additional security that i should take in VM? Or in host to check that VM is not connecting somewhere but VPNs IP?
Is it perfectly safe to browse in VM on VPN and at the same time browsing and doing other internet related things on host machine?
That's a lot of questions..It's just i'm new and want to learn as much as i can.
I'm probably stick to VPN on VM and host just so personal stuff, that's probably just easier.